Convert PSI to Kilopascals

About converting PSI to Kilopascals

PSI (psi) and Kilopascals (kPa) are both units of pressure, so converting between them is a single multiplication: multiply your PSI figure by 6.8948. Ten PSI comes to 68.9476 Kilopascals, and a hundred works out at 689.4757 Kilopascals.

Rule of thumb: going from PSI to Kilopascals multiplies, so the figure always grows — one PSI is already 6.8948 Kilopascals. If your answer came out smaller, you have the conversion the wrong way round.

What is a PSI?

Pounds per square inch is the pressure unit Americans actually meet: on the gauge at the filling-station air pump, on compressors, on hydraulic equipment, and on the sidewall of every tyre sold in the country. It survives in British tyre pressures too, despite nearly everything else there having gone metric. Structurally it is exactly what the name says — a pound-force resting on a square inch — and that heritage is also its weakness, because it inherits the pound-force and with it the old confusion between pounds as weight and pounds as mass.

What is a Kilopascal?

The kilopascal is what the pascal becomes once it is scaled to human problems — a thousand of them, and suddenly the numbers are readable. It is the everyday metric pressure unit across much of the world: tyre pressures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand are posted in kPa, as are the ratings on hydraulics, refrigeration and engineering specifications. Its close relative the hectopascal, a hundred pascals, is what weather services use for air pressure — chosen because it is exactly the size of the millibar forecasters used before it, so every published chart stayed valid.

To put both in perspective: a car tyre is usually inflated to about 32 psi, while a car tyre is inflated to roughly 220 kilopascals.

The converter above updates as you type, and the table lists common values for quick reference. Need the opposite direction? Use the Kilopascals to PSI converter, or browse all Pressure converters.