Technical Atmospheres to Kilopascals (at to kPa)

1 technical atmosphere equals 98.0665 kilopascals exactly.

How to convert technical atmospheres to kilopascals

To convert technical atmospheres to kilopascals, multiply the number of technical atmospheres by 98.0665. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilopascals by 0.01019716213 (rounded).

kilopascals = technical atmospheres × 98.0665

Example: 10 technical atmospheres = 980.665 kilopascals.

About these units

Technical Atmosphere (at)

CGS & old metricHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

Exactly 98,066.5 pascals: one kilogram-force per square centimeter. Still seen on gauges in older equipment.

Pressure given as kilograms-force per square centimeter is the technical atmosphere, symbol at. It is fixed by arithmetic rather than by any air measurement: one kilogram-force is 9.80665 newtons and a square centimeter is one ten-thousandth of a square meter, so the unit is exactly 98,066.5 pascals, or 98.0665 kilopascals. Shop-floor shorthand includes kg/cm2, kp/cm2 and, in some older publications, ksc.

It is close to, but not the same as, other familiar pressures. It is about 0.981 bar, roughly 2 percent below a bar, and about 0.9678 of a standard atmosphere. In pounds per square inch it comes to about 14.22. The unit is deprecated and outside SI, yet it lingers because older pressure gauges and equipment, including Soviet-made instruments, are still in service with dials marked in kgf/cm2. NIST conversion tables list it with an exact factor to the pascal.

1 technical atmosphere = 98,066.5 pascals (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Technical atmosphere; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 conversion factors; Wikipedia: Kilogram-force

Kilopascal (kPa)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 pascals. Used for tire pressures, weather reports in many countries and engineering.

Kilopascal is the form of the pascal that most people actually use. The pascal itself is very small, so outside meteorology the kilopascal became the common choice in most fields, and it equals one centibar. Medical elastography reports tissue stiffness in kPa, and Canada reports atmospheric pressure in kPa rather than hectopascals.

A standard atmosphere is 101.325 kPa. In 1982 IUPAC recommended a different reference for chemistry, a standard pressure of exactly 100 kPa, which split the older convention of 1 atm into two competing standards.

Blood pressure shows how the units line up. One mmHg is 0.13332 kPa, and a normal reading is below about 16.0 kPa systolic and 10.7 kPa diastolic, the same thing as the familiar 120 over 80 in millimeters of mercury.

1 kilopascal = 1,000 pascals (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pascal (unit); Wikipedia: Standard atmosphere (unit); Wikipedia: Millimetre of mercury

Related conversions

See all pressure units.