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Kilogram-force
 
 
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The unit kilogram-force (kgf or just kg) or kilopond (kp) is defined as the magnitude of the force
Force

In physics, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity. Force has both Euclidean_vector#Length of a vector and Direction , making it a Vector quantity....
 exerted on one kilogram
Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogrammeThe spelling kilogram is used by the International Committee for Weights and Measures and the U.S....
 of mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
 by a gravitational field (standard gravity
Standard gravity

Standard gravity, usually denoted by g0 or gn, is the nominal acceleration due to Earth's gravity at the Earth's surface at sea level....
, a conventional value approximating the average magnitude of gravity on Earth). So one kilogram-force is by definition equal to newton
Newton

The newton is the International System of Units SI derived unit of force, named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics....
s. Similarly a gram-force is millinewtons (or newtons), and a milligram-force is micronewtons (or newtons).

The kilogram-force has never been a part of the International System of Units
International System of Units

The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system devised around the convenience of the number ten....
 (SI), which was introduced in 1960.






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The unit kilogram-force (kgf or just kg) or kilopond (kp) is defined as the magnitude of the force
Force

In physics, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity. Force has both Euclidean_vector#Length of a vector and Direction , making it a Vector quantity....
 exerted on one kilogram
Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogrammeThe spelling kilogram is used by the International Committee for Weights and Measures and the U.S....
 of mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
 by a gravitational field (standard gravity
Standard gravity

Standard gravity, usually denoted by g0 or gn, is the nominal acceleration due to Earth's gravity at the Earth's surface at sea level....
, a conventional value approximating the average magnitude of gravity on Earth). So one kilogram-force is by definition equal to newton
Newton

The newton is the International System of Units SI derived unit of force, named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics....
s. Similarly a gram-force is millinewtons (or newtons), and a milligram-force is micronewtons (or newtons).

The kilogram-force has never been a part of the International System of Units
International System of Units

The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system devised around the convenience of the number ten....
 (SI), which was introduced in 1960. The SI unit of force is the newton
Newton

The newton is the International System of Units SI derived unit of force, named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics....
.

Prior to this, the unit was widely used in much of the world; it is still in use for some purposes. The thrust of a rocket engine, for example, was measured in kilograms-force in 1940s Germany, in the Soviet Union (where it remained the primary unit for thrust in the Russian space program until at least the late 1980s), and it is still used today in China and sometimes by the European Space Agency.

It is also used for tension of bicycle spokes
Spoke

A spoke is one of some number of rods radiating from the center of a wheel , connecting the hub with the round traction surface.The term originally referred to portions of a log which had been split lengthwise into four or six sections....
, for torque
Torque

Torque is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis . Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
 measured in "meter-kilograms", for pressure in kilograms per square centimeter, for the draw weight of bows in archery, and to define the "metric horsepower" (PS) as 75 metre-kiloponds per second.

The gram-force and kilogram-force were never well-defined units until the CGPM adopted a standard acceleration of gravity of 980.665 cm/sē for this purpose in 1901, though they had been used in low-precision measurements of force before that time.

A tonne-force, metric ton-force, megagram-force, or megapond (Mp) is 1000 kilograms-force.

The decanewton or dekanewton (daN) is used in some fields as an approximation to the kilogram-force, being exactly rather than approximately 10 newtons.