Pressure Conversions By Student, Class of 2000

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Pressure Conversions
By Student, Class of 2000

Pressure can be represented in many ways, using many symbols. The international unit of pressure is the kilopascal(kPa). The international unit is used most often out of the others, however do not be surprised to see another unit in a Boyle’s Law pressure conversion problem.

1 atmosphere(atm) = 760 Torr = 760 mm of Hg = 101.3 kPa

	# ATM	# TORR	# mm Hg	kPa
One ATM	1	760	760	101.3
760 Torr	1	760	760	101.3
760 mm of Hg	1	760	760	101.3
101.3 kPa	1	760	760	101.3

Eg. Suppose you are asked to change 115 kPa into Torr.

115 kPa / X Torr = 101.3 kPa/760 Torr

By cross multiplication, you would get:

115 * 760 = 101.3 * X

87,400 = 101.3 * X

X = 87,400 / 101.3

X = 862.784

Minding the rule of significant digits you would get:

X = 863 Torr