Force Converter takes the input of your force and converts it into 20+ other available force units that you can pick from the list. It is a unit converter (calculator) containing all the force units you may think of, both those popular & regularly used and those deprecated and less popular ones.

Take a look other related calculators, such as:

What is a force in physics?

We all use this term “force” regularly without even paying attention to it but do we know its proper definition in the first place?

Force is a term that you can find in many sciences, including math, mechanics, and most importantly, physics. In physics, force is widely spread and used. Scientists use it to describe and explain various events in nature. Having said that, every object you observe in front of you is affected by an impact of a force, and the force pushes or pulls it depending on its direction. When an object gets in contact with force, it immediately changes its direction and velocity.

Some scientists like to describe a force as an interaction between two or more physical objects. For example, whenever two or more objects get into contact and collide, a force makes them interact through wind, magnetism, gravity, and similar.

Interestingly, suppose we are sure that force makes objects move. In that case, it most likely sometimes brings a question in our head “Then why are there so many static objects not moving?”

Before tackling this question, it is important to understand that when an object is under pressure or force, it does not necessarily mean that only one force is included. Of course, many forces can hit an object with different magnitudes and directions. Thus depending on what magnitude they have and in which direction they are directed, eventually, it will result in objects moving into a particular direction.

Every force has two essential parts:

magnitude (strength)
direction

Example

I will try to clear it up for you in a more visual and friendly way.

Leaves floating around under the force of wind and gravitational force

You wake up one windy autumn day and go for a walk in a park. It is a time of year when leaves are falling, and the trees are completely naked and skeletal. You keep walking, and you find it amusing how the wind is playing around with the leaves, howling and taking the leaves in all directions. This colorful picture of a scenario is a great analogy of how the force works and is defined in physics.

The wind is only one force source out of many, which strikes upon those leaves (objects) and makes them move in a certain direction, depending on the magnitude level. Besides wind force, there is also a gravity force that potentially collides with the wind force, having an opposite force direction, forcing the leaves to go and stick to the ground. Thus, considering all those forces, their directions, and magnitudes, we will ultimately get a final direction in which the object is pointed towards and its movement speed.

Newton unit

Nowadays, I’m sure everybody has heard about this intellectual giant called Isaac Newton and all the benefits he brought to science, especially the 2nd Law of Motion in physics. Newton was a prominent mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. His surname was taken and used officially as a base force in physics (1 Newton N).

1 Newton N = 1 kg (an object’s mass) x 1 meter/second squared (an object’s acceleration)

In brief, it represents that a force of 1 Newton [N] is enough to give an acceleration of 1 meter/second squared to an object with a mass of 1 kg. Unit Newton [N] is a standard force unit accepted in SI (the metric system). People use it regularly in astronomy calculations, physics, mechanics, and daily life scenarios.

Force units

The International System of Units (SI) defined 1 Newton [N] as a force base in a popular metric system. However, it does not mean that there are no other alternative units; less popular but still being used in similar metric systems.

For example, in the Centimetre-gram–second system of units (CGS), the unit for a mass is not 1 kg but 1 gram. Samely, in CGS, the unit for acceleration is not m/second squared but cm/second squared. Thus, the final base unit for force is g per cm/second squared, or 1 Dyn / dyne.

In the United States, SI is not a choice number one, and people mostly use the foot-pound-second system (FPS). In FPS, the unit for a mass is 1 pound (weight), and for acceleration is 1 second squared. So, the official unit of force in this system of units is 1 ft/second squared or poundal/pdl.

If you need to check more of these force units, check out the Calcon force calculator/converter.

Force conversions

Depending on your needs, you can easily use the force calculator to convert one unit of force into another. Unit Newton [N] is the base from which other units can be calculated by multiplication or division. Thus look at the table below, and let me show you how unit conversion works from different unit systems.

Unit	Symbol	Conversion Rate
dyne	dyn	0.00001
kilogram-force	kgf	9.80665
kilopond	kp	9.80665
kip	kip	4448.222
newton	N	= 1
kilonewton	kN	1000
ounce-force	ozf	0.2780139
poundal	pdl	0.138255
pound-force	lbf	4.448222
ton-force	tnf	8896.443

You see a list of many force units, their symbol, and unit conversion rate. But how does conversion works among them?

For example, we have 50 Newton [N] force, which we want to convert into other force units. So you have to divide that number with the unit conversion rate (9.80665 for Newton to kiloponds) of the unit you are converting force into it. The example below shows you how to convert Newton [N] into kiloponds [kp].

Force = \frac{50 N}{9.80665}

In the opposite scenario, when you want to convert the number from Dyne into a Newton [N] unit, you need to multiply the number with the conversion rate of that force unit.

Force = 100 \times 0.00001 = 0.001 N

However, let’s assume you need to convert from kilogram-force into pound-force (weight). The force is calculated by dividing the conversion rate of kilogram-force by the rate of pound-force. The number you get from this calculation can be multiplied with any force value when converting from kgf to lbf.

Force = 30 \times 9.80665 \div 4.448222 = 66.138 lbf

Units, symbols, and conversion values used in this force calculator

Using our Calcon Force Calculator, you will be able to access over 20 force units and do conversions among them. Here I will be giving you a full list of all available force units that you can choose in the force calculator.

Available force units:

centinewtons (cN)
decanewtons (daN)
decinewtons (dN)
dynes (dyN)
giganewtons (GN)
kilogram-force (kgf)
kilonewtons (kN)
kiloponds (kp)
kilopound-force (kip)
meganewtonds (MN)
megaponds (Mp)
micronewtons (µN)
miligrave-force (mGf)
milinewtons (mN)
newtons (N)
ounce-force (ozf)
ponds (pond)
pound-force (lbf)
poundal (pdl)
sthenes (sn)
ton-forces (tnf)
tera-newtonds (TN)
kips (kip)
joules per meter (J/m)

Dynes, kiloponds, pounds-force, and all those strange units?

If I were to ask all of you who are reading this article whether you ever heard of any of these strange units, I’m sure the answer would be NO. I want to inform you that all these units are units of force, but you do not come across them often or never because they are not so popular. This section will cover a few of them and give you more information on their use.

Dynes

If you work with small objects and want to calculate forces, dynes should be a good fit.

1 N (1 kg m/second²) = 100,000 Dynes (1 cm/second²)

Kiloponds

Kilopond, also called kilogram-force, indicates how much force is applied to an object with a mass of 1 kg in a gravitational field.

1 kp = 9.80665 N (kg m/second²)

Pound–force

Pound-force is also a force unit that indicates how strong gravitational force is applied on one International avoirdupois pound of the surface.

1 lbf = 4.448222 N (kg m/second²)

How to use the force converter – example

Calcon force unit converter (calculator) is an app that automatically converts force from one force unit into several previously selected force units. We have already mentioned that it supports over 20+ force units that you can use in conversions. So let’s check it out in the simple example below.

Suppose we have a force presented in poundal (pdl), which is normally only used in English engineering but with low precision. We need to convert it into a more convenient unit format for some reason. The unit converter will do every conversion for you instantly.

Force of 500 poundal (unit conversion):

N (Newtons) = 6.91
kip (kips) = 0.02
dyn (Dynes) = 6,912,747,72
J/m (joules per meter) = 69.13
ozf (Ounce-force) = 248.64
sn (sthenes) = 0.07

Force Converter