The short ton, American unit of mass
The short ton is 2000 pounds, that is 907.185 kilograms, 9.3 per cent below the metric tonne. In the United States a ton with nothing added means this one.
The two English tons do not disagree about the ton, they disagree about the hundred. The English hundredweight holds 112 pounds, eight stone of fourteen, so twenty of them make 2240 pounds. American trade preferred a round hundred-pound hundredweight, the cental, and twenty centals make 2000. From that ton comes a second usage with no mass in it whatsoever: American air conditioning is rated in tons of refrigeration, one ton being the power needed to melt a short ton of ice in twenty-four hours, 12,000 BTU per hour, that is 3.517 kilowatts. A three-ton unit delivers 10.55 kW and stands on a garden slab.
The short ton in other units
| 1 ton US | 0.907185 t |
| 1 ton US | 907.185 kg |
| 1 ton US | 907,185 g |
| 1 ton US | 907,184,740 mg |
| 1 ton US | 2,000 lb |
| 1 ton US | 32,000 oz |
| 1 ton US | 29,167 oz t |
| 1 ton US | 142.857 st |
| 1 ton US | 4,535,924 ct |
| 1 ton US | 0.892857 ton UK |
| 1 ton US | 907,184,740,000 µg |
| 1 ton US | 1,814 lb metric |
| 1 ton US | 77,778 tola |
| 1 ton US | 241,916 momme |
| 1 ton US | 241.916 kan |
Frequently asked questions
What does a half-ton pickup mean?
It was originally a payload class: half a short ton, 454 kilograms, for the Ford F-150 and its rivals, three quarters for the F-250, a full ton for the F-350. The names stayed put while the capacities doubled, and some F-150 configurations, half-ton by name, are now rated beyond 1400 kilograms of payload.
Why do Americans say net ton?
Because American usage calls the short ton the net ton and the long ton the gross ton, with no question of net or gross weight of goods. Railroads report their traffic in net tons and American emission inventories count in short tons: such a figure carried unchanged into an international table is overstated by 10.2 per cent.
What is the assay ton used in mining laboratories?
A mass chosen to remove a calculation. The short assay ton weighs 29.1667 grams, so that one milligram of gold recovered from a sample of that mass corresponds exactly to one troy ounce per short ton of ore. The cupellation therefore reads the grade straight off the balance, with no conversion, which is why North American assay reports are still written in ounces per ton.