What Does SCFM Mean?

When you spend many of your waking hours reading, writing, and handling compressed air equipment, it’s easy to forget that the compressed air world is as full of puzzling acronyms.

Take SCFM. Does everyone know what that means? Apparently not. A reader was looking for information about defining SCFM today.

I’ve written about SCFM many times, but it doesn’t hurt to review. SCFM is the acronym for Standard Cubic Feet of air per Minute.

Since a standard cubic foot of air has a specific temperature, a specific humidity, and is measured at sea level, it’s the normal unit of measure for air that has NOT been compressed.

For example, you might say that a specific compressor has 50 SCFM of air entering it’s intake port.

Some folks and companies use SCFM as a unit of measure for air leaving the compressor; air that’s been compressed.

Air leaving the compressor is in no way “standard”. It’s at a higher temperature, it’s has a much higher humidity (vapor content) level and if the compressor itself is not situated exactly at sea level, well then it misses that SCFM benchmark too.

For purposes of stating the flow of compressed air, that’s air that’s passed through the compressor reaching a higher pressure level than one atmosphere, I use the acronym CFM. CFM is the acronym for Cubic Feet of air per Minute.