Tons-force (short) to Pounds-force (tonf (US) to lbf)
1 ton-force (short) equals 2,000 pounds-force exactly.
How to convert tons-force (short) to pounds-force
To convert tons-force (short) to pounds-force, multiply the number of tons-force (short) by 2,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply pounds-force by 0.0005.
pounds-force = tons-force (short) × 2,000
Example: 10 tons-force (short) = 20,000 pounds-force.
About these units
Ton-force (short) (tonf (US))
2,000 pounds-force (8.896 kN), the weight of a short ton.
A ton-force turns a ton of mass into the force it exerts under standard gravity, and the short ton-force is the American version. It equals 2,000 pounds-force, or 8.896443 kilonewtons, which is also about 907.18 kilogram-force. The word ton is ambiguous, so the short qualifier separates it from its neighbors.
Two relatives share the name. The long ton-force, based on the 2,240 pound British ton, is 9.964 kilonewtons, and the metric tonne-force, equal to 1,000 kilogram-force, is 9.80665 kilonewtons. A short ton-force is therefore about 0.893 of a long ton-force and about 0.907 of a tonne-force.
All three use the standard gravity of 9.80665 meters per second squared, so none depends on the place where a load is weighed. American engineers meet the unit in press ratings, crane and hoist capacities and structural loads, and it is one kip doubled. SI documents give the same figures in kilonewtons.
1 ton-force (short) = 8,896.443231 newtons (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Ton-force; Wikipedia: Short ton; Wikipedia: Pound (force)
Pound-force (lbf)
Exactly 4.4482216152605 newtons: the weight of a one-pound mass under standard gravity. The US unit of force.
People have used the pound-force since the eighteenth century for low-precision work, long before anyone needed to define it carefully. A pound of material on Earth's surface pulls with about a pound of force, which made it convenient to treat the two as one. The twentieth century demanded a precise definition: one pound-force is the avoirdupois pound, exactly 0.45359237 kg, multiplied by standard gravity of 9.80665 meters per second squared, which comes to about 4.448 newtons.
Because the unit is not simply mass times acceleration in its own system, formulas in English engineering units need a conversion constant of about 32.174 pound-feet per pound-force second squared. A slug, 32.174049 pounds of mass, is what one pound-force accelerates at one foot per second squared. In the US, jet and rocket thrust is often given as pounds of thrust: each Space Shuttle solid rocket booster produced 3,300,000 pounds-force. Earth's gravity varies by up to about half a percent between equator and pole, which low-precision work can ignore.
1 pound-force = 4.448221615 newtons (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Pound (force); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors
Related conversions
- Pounds-force to tons-force (short) (reverse)
- Tons-force (short) to newtons
- Tons-force (short) to kilonewtons
- Newtons to pounds-force
- Kilonewtons to pounds-force
- Kilograms-force to pounds-force
- Meganewtons to pounds-force
- Millinewtons to pounds-force
- Ounces-force to pounds-force
- Grams-force to pounds-force
- Poundals to pounds-force
- Dynes to pounds-force
- Kips to pounds-force
- Tons-force (long) to pounds-force
- Tonnes-force to pounds-force
See all force units.