Viscosity converter
Convert between centipoise and pascal-seconds, and see where your fluid sits between water, honey and tar.
That's 10× as thick as olive oil, while honey is 10× thicker. That is about 1,000× as thick as water.
What it means
How thick is that?
This is dynamic viscosity. Kinematic viscosity (cSt) divides by density and is a different quantity.
Every unit
Your viscosity in every unit
Learn
Three things worth knowing
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Water is 1 cP
That is the whole scale: olive oil is about 80 cP, honey 10,000 cP, and tar millions. 1 cP is 1 mPa·s exactly.
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Poiseuille’s pipes
The poise honours Jean Poiseuille, who measured how blood flows through narrow tubes. The centipoise exists because the poise was the wrong size for water.
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Dynamic or kinematic?
Motor oil grades come from kinematic viscosity in centistokes, not centipoise. They only match once you divide by density.
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Popular viscosity conversions
Background
About viscosity units
Viscosity is a fluid’s resistance to flowing. The SI unit is the pascal-second, but industry lives in centipoise, chosen so that water sits at almost exactly 1 cP.