Finishing worked example

Pretreatment Chemical Usage with pretreatment chemical feed rate of 13 gal / hr: a worked example

Suppose pretreatment chemical feed rate falls to 13 gal / hr. This page works the full calculation at that level so you can see exactly which result moves and by how much. Calculate pretreatment chemical consumption and cost from feed rate, runtime, and chemical price.

The inputs for this scenario

Pretreatment chemical feed rate: 13 gal / hr (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 25)
Wash line runtime this shift: 8 hr (held at the documented default)
Delivered chemical unit cost: 0.75 $ / gal (held at the documented default)

Working through the calculation

The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Consumption = use rate × runtime.
Run cost works out to 78 $ / shift at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
Consumption works out to 104 units at these inputs.
Runtime works out to 8 hr at these inputs.
Unit cost works out to 0.75 $ / unit at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

Against the tool's baseline example, where pretreatment chemical feed rate sits at 25 gal / hr and the headline result is 150 $ / shift, this scenario comes in 48% below the baseline at 78 $ / shift.
It multiplies chemical feed rate by wash-line runtime to get gallons consumed, then multiplies by unit cost for the per-shift dollar total. When the numbers land here, the stressed input is the lever to work; the walkthrough above shows exactly how much each output recovers as it climbs back toward the baseline.

Results at a glance

Run cost: 78 $ / shift (headline result)
Consumption: 104 units
Runtime: 8 hr
Unit cost: 0.75 $ / unit

Run it with your numbers

To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Pretreatment Chemical Usage calculator, set pretreatment chemical feed rate to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.