If an engine with high horsepower can gear down to increase torque, couldn’t a high-torque engine be geared up to increase horsepower?

Question

Just wondering why, in these discussions, people always say the former and not the latter.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Horsepower measures how much “work” an engine can output.

Gearing ratio changes how that “work” manifests itself, e.g. rotation speed vs force (or torque).

Say you are capable of moving a ton across from one side of a football field to another in 30min that’s your horse power.

The gearing ratio is how you’ll do it, you can either drag it very slowly in one go or in few very heavy chunks, or you can pick up small parts and sprint across the field.

The end result is still 1 ton over 30min.