# Climbing Question ~ Kilo-Newtons?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 14, 2002, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083 "2002-05-14T21:00:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083/1 "2002-05-14T21:00:31Z")

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    - I have a pair of lightweight climbing carabiners marked “kN\<–\>20” [then an arrow pointing ‘up’] “6” [then a diagram of the carabiner with gate open] “6”. It’s marked “Kong-Bonaiti-Italy” on the other side of the spine, Kong is the manfacturer’s name and I bought it eight or so years ago in a real actual climbing shop, it isn’t a cheapo-fake-gas-station keyholder. I asked on a climbing forum I found a while back and didn’t get any response but only a couple people there posted regularly (once or twice a week) and they mostly only responded to each other.  
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- Most US-made carabiners come marked with weight limits, giving you an easy idea of their strength. I never used this as a mainline link (it’s really thin, you can flex it in your hands) but I am curious… If this thing can withstand 20 kilo-Newtons, how many pounds can it hold? - DougC

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**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083/2 "2002-05-14T21:08:02Z")

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Ah. A Newton is a kilogram-meter-per-second-squared; the product of mass times acceleration. The accelerations due to gravity is 9.8m/s^2; if we round that off to ten, we get a mass of roughly 2,000kg, or about 4400 pounds.

Mind you, any additional acceleration (like falling, and being caught by the carabiner) will greatly reduce the load it can handle.

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**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083/3 "2002-05-14T21:10:16Z")

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I should explain that pounds, like newtons, are technically units of force. The unit of mass in the “foot-pound-second” system is called a _slug_.

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**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2002, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climbing-question-kilo-newtons/109083/4 "2002-05-14T21:13:49Z")

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Both Newtons and Puounds are technically units of force  
(insert metric rant here, suffice to say way too many dymanics problems had me thinking is that punds force or punds mass)

Anyhow, googling says 1N ~= 0.2248 lbf  
so, 20kN ~= 4496 lbf

Brian