Sonotube® is a brand of cylindrical-shaped concrete forms manufactured by the company Sonoco. These forms are crafted from multiple layers of high-quality spiral-wound fiber, bonded together using a proprietary heavy-duty adhesive.

• Strength and durability
• Versatile for multiple applications

Sonotube products are ideal for constructing:

• Perfectly round columns for residential and commercial buildings

• Deck supports
• Light posts
• Fence post supports
• Any other cylindrical post requirements

You can easily strip off the Sonotubes before the poured concrete hardens completely. Alternatively, depending on your application, you can leave the Sonotubes on the columns. They come in various types and durability levels, but all Sonotubes are designed to withstand the high pressures exerted by wet concrete.

Let's say we want to construct six 10-feet (or 120-inches) high concrete columns using 16-inch Sonotube concrete forms. For this, we can use the formula for the volume of a cylinder to determine how much concrete we'll need for a single column:

\[ V_{\text{column}} = \frac{\pi \times d^2 \times h}{4} = \frac{\pi \times 16^2 \times 120}{4} = 24,127.43 \text{ in}^3 \approx 0.5171 \text{ cubic yards} \]

where:

• \( V_{\text{column}} \) — Concrete volume per column
• \( d \) — Column diameter or Sonotube size
• \( h \) — Height of column

To find the total concrete volume we'll need for all columns, we simply multiply the volume needed for each column by the number of columns. For our example:

\[ V_{\text{total}} = V_{\text{column}} \times n = 0.5171 \text{ cubic yards} \times 6 \approx 3.103 \text{ cubic yards} \]

where:

• \( V_{\text{total}} \) — Total volume of concrete needed
• \( V_{\text{column}} \) — Concrete volume per column
• \( n \) — Number of columns