Moisture Content Calculator
Use our moisture content calculator to calculate moisture content (%) from wet weight and dry weight. Get water weight (lb) and moisture content percent using the standard moisture content formula used for soil and materials.
What Is Moisture Content?
Moisture content (also called water content) measures how much water is contained in a material compared to the material’s dry mass. It’s commonly used for soil, wood, grains, building materials, and lab samples.
In soil testing, moisture content helps with compaction targets, irrigation decisions, and understanding how wet or dry a soil sample is relative to its dry solids.
This calculator uses wet weight and dry weight to return the water weight and moisture content percentage.
Moisture Content Formula
Moisture content is the mass of water divided by the dry mass, expressed as a percentage.
The difference between wet and dry weight is the water removed by drying.
Also called gravimetric moisture content.
Moisture content increases as the wet and dry difference increases.
How to Calculate Moisture Content
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Measure and enter weight while wet (lb).
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Dry the sample to constant mass and enter weight after drying (lb).
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The calculator computes water weight as wet minus dry.
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It computes moisture content as (water weight ÷ dry weight) × 100.
Frequently Asked Questions
Compute water weight = wet weight − dry weight, then moisture content (%) = (water weight ÷ dry weight) × 100.
Weigh the soil sample wet, dry it to constant mass, weigh it dry, then use moisture content (%) = (wet − dry) ÷ dry × 100.
A common soil water content (gravimetric) formula is w(%) = (mass of water ÷ mass of dry soil) × 100, where mass of water = wet mass − dry mass.
Moisture content is water mass relative to dry mass. Moisture regain is a related textile/material term that is often defined similarly but may use different reference bases depending on the standard.