Kilograms-force to Newtons (kgf to N)
1 kilogram-force equals 9.80665 newtons exactly.
How to convert kilograms-force to newtons
To convert kilograms-force to newtons, multiply the number of kilograms-force by 9.80665. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply newtons by 0.1019716213 (rounded).
newtons = kilograms-force × 9.80665
Example: 10 kilograms-force = 98.0665 newtons.
About these units
Kilogram-force (kgf)
Exactly 9.80665 newtons: the weight of one kilogram at standard gravity. Also called the kilopond; still common for torque and force in Asia and older European specs.
Before the newton existed, engineers simply measured force by the weight of a standard mass, and the kilogram-force was that idea made official. Its alternative name, kilopond, comes from the Latin pondus, meaning weight. Its size depended on local gravity until 1901, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted 9.80665 m/s2 as standard gravity, which fixed one kilogram-force at exactly 9.80665 newtons. The newton was proposed in 1913 and accepted in 1948.
A proposal to make the kilogram-force an official unit of force was rejected, and it is deprecated and outside SI. Even so it persists in niche uses: bicycle spoke tension, archery bow draw weight, bond wire strength and Vickers hardness testing. German rocket engineers of the 1940s quoted thrust in it, and Soviet and Russian space programs kept doing so until at least the late 1980s. Metric horsepower is defined from it. One kilogram-force is about 2.20462 pound-force and equals 980,665 dynes.
1 kilogram-force = 9.80665 newtons (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Kilogram-force; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 conversion factors
Newton (N)
The SI unit of force: the force that accelerates one kilogram by one meter per second squared. About the weight of a small apple.
Isaac Newton gave his name to the unit for his second law of motion, force equals mass times acceleration. Metric engineers needed a force unit that fitted the metre-kilogram-second system, and the CGPM standardized one in 1946; the 9th CGPM in 1948 adopted the name newton, with symbol N. Before that, many metric users measured force in kilograms-force, which confuses weight with mass, and CGS users had the much smaller dyne.
One newton is the force that gives a one-kilogram mass an acceleration of one meter per second every second. For scale, a 200-gram apple weighs about 1.96 N on Earth, so a newton is roughly the weight of a small apple. It equals 100,000 dynes and about 0.225 pound-force. Forces in the thousands are written in kilonewtons. Because the newton is built directly from kilograms, meters and seconds, it slots into formulas for pressure, energy and power without any conversion constants.
The newton is the reference unit for force on this site.
Sources: Wikipedia: Newton (unit); BIPM: 9th CGPM (1948), Resolution 7; Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units
Related conversions
- Newtons to kilograms-force (reverse)
- Kilograms-force to kilonewtons
- Kilograms-force to pounds-force
- Kilonewtons to newtons
- Pounds-force to newtons
- Meganewtons to newtons
- Millinewtons to newtons
- Ounces-force to newtons
- Grams-force to newtons
- Poundals to newtons
- Dynes to newtons
- Kips to newtons
- Tons-force (short) to newtons
- Tons-force (long) to newtons
- Tonnes-force to newtons
See all force units.