What is horsepower and torque and how do they relate to a car being fast or a truck having a towing capacity?
In: Engineering
Torque is the twisting force of the wheels, and Horsepower is how much work is done.
When you wring a towel out, torque is how hard you can twist it, HP is kind of like much water comes out.
transmissions exist, which is like putting the towel in a mechanical twister that you spin by hand, every 2 turns of your arm is one turn on the twister. You can apply
twice the pressure.
The torque measurement is coming from your arm though.
The 2 turns is great, but you want more, so you upgraded it to 4 turns per, to double the pressure on the towel again, but the little wooden dowels that hold it in place snapped.
So you get metal dowels.
Upgrade again to 8 turns per, and something else breaks. And you replace it for something a little more durable.
You keep this up, and before you know it, your towel wringer is top notch. durable, plus really bulky.
^That’s the truck that can tow.
Another person says, what if Make a device that spins the towel really fast? One arm turn is 5 spins of the towel.
Still applying the same torque with your arm.
This design puts more wear on Bearings and anything that is slightly off balance.
You upgrade to smaller, more precise parts.
Spin faster. Upgrade, faster, upgrade.
^This is like the fast car.
Remember, you’re the engine here, same torque for both, only the design is different.
Both can produce the same horsepower, and can have the same torque, but you can get a different engine that is better at doing that task.
As well as computers making it so we can customize the timing of how much power you have at what speed.
A car’s engine would be designed to have the torque be low in the beginning, then highest when it’s going fast so it can go even faster.
A trucks engine would be designed to have high torque at the start so it can start moving a large load from a stop.
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