Kilogram-force per square centimetre


A kilogram-force per square centimetre, often just kilogram per square centimetre, or kilopond per square centimetre is a deprecated unit of pressure using metric units. It is not a part of the International System of Units, the modern metric system. 1 kgf/cm2 equals 98.0665 kPa or 0.980665 bar—2% less than a bar. It is also known as a technical atmosphere.
Use of the kilogram-force per square centimetre continues primarily due to older pressure measurement devices still in use.
This use of the unit of pressure provides an intuitive understanding for how a body's mass, in contexts with roughly standard gravity, can apply force to a scale's surface area, i.e. kilogram-force per square metre.
In SI units, the unit is converted to the SI derived unit pascal, which is defined as one newton per square metre. A newton is equal to 1 kg⋅m/s2, and a kilogram-force is, meaning that 1 kgf/cm2 equals 98.0665 kilopascals.
In some older publications, kilogram-force per square centimetre is abbreviated ksc instead of kgf/cm2.

Ambiguity of at

The symbol "at" clashes with that of the katal, the SI unit of catalytic activity; a kilotechnical atmosphere would have the symbol "kat", indistinguishable from the symbol for the katal. It also clashes with that of the non-SI unit, the attotonne, but that unit would more likely be rendered as the equivalent SI unit, the picogram.