kilopascalul

Kilopascalul, or kilopascal in Romanian usage, is the SI-derived unit of pressure equal to 1,000 pascals. It is abbreviated as kPa. The pascal is defined as one newton per square meter, so one kilopascal equals 1,000 N/m^2. The prefix kilo- denotes a factor of 10^3. The kilopascal is a practical unit for expressing pressures that are large enough to require thousands of pascals but not so large as to demand bars or megapascals. It is widely used in engineering, meteorology, automotive specifications, electronics, and other fields.

Relation to other units: 1 kPa equals 0.01 bar and about 0.145 psi. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 101.3 kPa. Because of its alignment with the SI system, kPa is commonly preferred in technical contexts in many countries, while bar or psi may be used in others. In medical contexts, some measurements can also be expressed in kPa, though millimeters of mercury (mmHg) or other units are sometimes used.

Etymology and naming: The kilopascal is formed from the prefix kilo- (thousand) and the pascal, the SI unit named after Blaise Pascal, a 17th‑century French physicist. The term reflects the standard practice of naming SI units by combining a metric prefix with a base unit.

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