Newtons to Kips (N to kip)

1 newton equals 0.0002248089431 kips (rounded).

How to convert newtons to kips

To convert newtons to kips, multiply the number of newtons by 0.0002248089431. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kips by 4,448.221615 (rounded).

kips = newtons × 0.0002248089431

Example: 10 newtons = 0.002248089431 kips.

About these units

Newton (N)

Metric (SI)Current unit

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

Kip (kip)

US customaryTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

1,000 pounds-force (4.448 kN). Used for structural loads in US engineering.

Structural engineers in the United States wanted a force unit that avoided long strings of digits, and so they joined kilo and pound into kip, sometimes called a kilopound. One kip equals 1,000 pounds-force, which is about 4,448 newtons or 4.448 kilonewtons. Writing kipf or klbf makes plain that force, and not mass, is meant.

Because a pound-force is the weight of one avoirdupois pound under standard gravity, 4.4482216152605 N, the kip carries that definition with it and does not vary with local gravity. A beam design might list a column load as 150 kips instead of 150,000 lbf, and stress is often given in kips per square inch, abbreviated ksi.

Shipping also uses the term as a deadweight unit. Rarely, kip has meant a mass of 1,000 pounds. An unrelated obsolete Malaysian kip of roughly 9.19 kg also existed. In SI practice kips are replaced by kilonewtons.

1 kip = 4,448.221615 newtons (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kip (unit); Wikipedia: Pound (force)

Related conversions

See all force units.