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4th June 2014 Newton's Law Proportionality Constant (g sub c ; gc)

g sub c is an often misunderstood factor designed for converting various units involving force and mass units in a
number of equations.
gc G subscript C

Introduction to g

This article is about a quantity g sub c, which is used to convert mass units into force units & vice versa.
The value & units of gc are:

In FPS units

In SI units

For readers who are interested in understanding the concept of gc in detail may read further..
The concept of gc arises from the fact that physical quantity force can be expressed in two types of units: mass
units & force units.
Lets understand in detail:

Force and its Units

We know force, the contribution of Newton.
Newton observed that force required to change the momentum of any body is directly proportional to its mass
and acceleration.
That is, F mxa
Or F = kma
At this point force was not defined mathematically and Newton 2nd Law gave a chance to define it.
Scientists defined 1 unit of force as the force required to accelerate 1 kg mass with acceleration of 1 m/s2. This 1
unit was named Newton and we observe the value of constant k comes out to be 1.
Okay, so lets define force a bit differently.
Now we define our unit of force as 1 Newerton as the force required to accelerate 1 kg mass with acceleration of
5 m/s2.
So what complications do we observe with this modification. Oh no, not much
Just that our new 2nd Law of Newerton is F = 1/5ma, and our constant k is 1/5. All the equations of motion would
have to adjust force with the new constant 1/5.
Okay, so which force do we know most commonly Weight. Common man uses the word weight but doesnt
mention its units correctly. We still say My weight is 65 kg while kg is the unit of mass and not of weight, i.e.
force. The person should have said 65*9.8 = 637 N.
What scientific world call mass, practical world calls it weight.
How to overcome this situation?? Lets move back
What if we define a new unit of force, and call it
1kgf = weight of 1 kg mass = m x a = 1 x 9.8 m/s2 = 9.8 N.
So, 1 kgf is the force that will produce an acceleration of 9.8m/s2 in a body of 1 kg mass.
What does all this facilitate?? Now a person of 65 kg mass has a weight of 65 kgf. Easy!

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So this is called force units of force and newton (N) was mass unit of force.
But issue doesnt end here we need to refine mathematical form of 2nd law.
F = kma
And
1 kgf = k x 1kg x 9.8 m/s2
Hence k =

And what is this

&

? Its our gc !!!

So gc =

c as a conversion factor

gc is a conversion factor to convert force units ( kgf ) to mass units ( N ) & vice versa.
As an example, to convert 637 N to force units we divide it by gc:
637 N = 637
Dividing this value with gc gives:
= 637
x
= 65 kgf .
These are the units when were working in SI units. When working with FPS units, gc turns out to be:
gc =

32.2

where mass m is in lb, acceleration due to gravity g in

, and force F in
Remember Bernoullis equation? There are two common versions of it:
High School Form

or lbf .

Engineering Form :
Okay, so what is p in the above equation Pressure. And whats pressure? Its force per unit area. Now because
in engineering practice, force is generally expressed as kgf or lbf and hence pressure as
So we introduce gc in Bernoullis equation to convert force units to mass units.

or ,

or as

(for force units of pressure)

or,

If we are going to put Pressure directly in

, we need not consider the presence of gc.
Whenever we need to work with force or any quantity derived from force, like torque, pressure, shear
force, etc., we may need to introduce gc if we are putting the values of these quantities in force units.
Source : g sub c [http://gsubscriptc.wordpress.com/article/home/]

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Newton's Law Proportionality Constant (g sub c ; gc) | Univer...

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Posted 4th June 2014 by Hitesh Thukral

Labels: Equation, Explanation, Pharmaceutical Unit Operations, Physics
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