What is bulk density
We have discussed the density and relative density of solid coal. A cubic centimeter of solid coal weighs about 1.3 grams hence if we fill a meter cube with 1 solid piece of coal, the weight will be about 1.3 tons. If we fill the cube with very small pieces of coal, shall we require more or less than 1.3 tons to fill it?
When we put small pieces of coal into our container, we leave air spaces between them. Therefore we have less than 1.3 tons of coal. How much less depends entirely on the amount of air space between the coal pieces, which depends further on the particle size.
Even when the coal is in the loose state, we can still measure its weight and volume and therefore calculate its bulk density. But we shall not get the same result as when it was in the solid state (1.3 g/m3). Our new density will be lower than this and will probably be or these two density values (ie in the solid and the loose states) are not the same, we cannot call both of them the density of coal. The value obtainable when the coal is in the loose state is the density of a bulk of coal particles and we call it BULK DENSITY.
Bulk density of coal is thus the mass of unit volume (eg 1 cm3 or 1 m3 ) of the coal in the loose state, taking the air space into account.