Specific force
concept in physics
Specific force (SF) is a mass-specific quantity defined as the quotient of force per unit mass.
S
F
=
F
/
m
{\displaystyle \mathrm {SF} =F/m}
It is a physical quantity of kind acceleration, with dimension of length per time squared (T-2L) and SI units of metre per second squared (m·s−2).
It is normally applied to forces other than gravity, to emulate the relationship between gravitational acceleration and gravitational force.
It can also be called mass-specific weight (weight per unit mass), as the weight of an object is equal to the magnitude of the gravity force acting on it.
The g-force is an instance of specific force measured in units of the standard gravity (g) instead of m/s², i.e., in multiples of g (e.g., "3 g").
Type of acceleration
The (mass-)specific force is not a coordinate acceleration, but rather a proper acceleration, which is the acceleration relative to free-fall. Forces, specific forces, and proper accelerations are the same in all reference frames, but coordinate accelerations are frame-dependent. For free bodies, the specific force is the cause of, and a measure of, the body's proper acceleration.
The acceleration of an object free falling towards the Earth depends on the reference frame (it disappears in the free-fall frame, also called the inertial frame), but any g-force "acceleration" will be present in all frames. This specific force is zero for freely-falling objects, since gravity acting alone does not produce g-forces or specific forces.
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This entry incorporates text from “Specific force” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.