A kilogram-force per square centimetre (kgf/cm<sup>2</sup>), often just kilogram per square centimetre (kg/cm<sup>2</sup>), or kilopond per square centimetre (kp/cm<sup>2</sup>) is a deprecated unit of pressure using metric units. It is not a part of the International System of Units (SI), the modern metric system. 1 kgf/cm<sup>2</sup> equals 98.0665 kPa (kilopascals) or 0.980665 barâÂÂ2% less than a bar. It is also known as a technical atmosphere (symbol: at).
Use of the kilogram-force per square centimetre continues primarily due to older pressure measurement devices still in use.
This use of the unit of pressure provides an intuitive understanding for how a body's mass, in contexts with roughly standard gravity, can apply force to a scale's surface area, i.e. kilogram-force per square (centi-)metre.
In SI units, the unit is converted to the SI derived unit pascal (Pa), which is defined as one newton per square metre (N/m<sup>2</sup>). A newton is equal to 1 kgâ m/s<sup>2</sup>, and a kilogram-force is , meaning that 1 kgf/cm<sup>2</sup> equals 98.0665 kilopascals (kPa).
In some older publications, kilogram-force per square centimetre is abbreviated ksc instead of kgf/cm<sup>2</sup>.
The symbol "at" clashes with that of the katal (symbol: "kat"), the SI unit of catalytic activity; a kilotechnical atmosphere would have the symbol "kat", indistinguishable from the symbol for the katal. It also clashes with that of the non-SI unit, the attotonne, but that unit would more likely be rendered as the equivalent SI unit, the picogram.