Megapascal (MPa)
One million pascals. Used for material strength and hydraulic pressure.
1 megapascal = 1,000,000 pascals (exactly).
About the megapascal
Engineers reach for the megapascal because the pascal is far too small for solid materials. It is the preferred unit in engineering for stiffness and for tensile or compressive strength, and stiffness figures go on to gigapascals: aluminium is given as 69 GPa, structural steel as 200 GPa, and diamond as 1,220 GPa.
Fluid systems live in the same range. One megapascal is 10 bar, so scuba tanks filled to about 200 bar sit at 20 MPa, and fixed industrial hydraulic machinery commonly working at around 300 bar runs at about 30 MPa. A kilobar, used in experimental petrology, is 100 MPa.
For comparison with units from the pounds-and-inches world, one psi is about 6.895 kPa, so a megapascal is about 145 psi.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pascal (unit); Wikipedia: Bar (unit); Wikipedia: Pounds per square inch
Megapascal conversion chart
1 megapascal expressed in every other pressure unit:
| Unit | 1 megapascal |
|---|---|
| Pascals | 1,000,000 |
| Kilopascals | 1,000 |
| Bars | 10 |
| Standard Atmospheres | 9.869232667 |
| PSI | 145.0377377 |
| Hectopascals | 10,000 |
| Millibars | 10,000 |
| Torr | 7,500.616827 |
| Millimeters Of Mercury | 7,500.615758 |
| Inches Of Mercury | 295.299833 |
| Gigapascals | 0.001 |
| Kilopounds Per Square Inch | 0.1450377377 |
| Millimeters Of Water | 101,971.6213 |
| Inches Of Water | 4,014.63076 |
| Technical Atmospheres | 10.19716213 |
| Pounds Per Square Foot | 20,885.43423 |
| Baryes | 10,000,000 |
| Pièzes | 1,000 |
More Metric (SI) units
- pascal (pressure)
- kilopascal (pressure)
- hectopascal (pressure)
- gigapascal (pressure)
- bar (pressure)
- millibar (pressure)
- standard atmosphere (pressure)
- meter (length)
- kilometer (length)
- centimeter (length)
- millimeter (length)
- micrometer (length)
- nanometer (length)
- picometer (length)
- decimeter (length)
- hectometer (length)
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