007 said:
"Horsepower is a function of torque, not the other way round."
Nope. Thats stupid.. its math... of course its true in reverse! Hp and torque are directly proportional at any given rpm. You know tq and rpm, you know power. You know power and rpm, you know torque.
"The torque is a force"
Nope, Torque is not a force. A force would be measured in Newtons or lbs. Foot x lbs, or N x m, is a measure of Work (energy).
Rate of work (I.e. times it by the rev rate) is power.
Its pretty damn simple but so many people are confused by hp and tq:
HP = torque * RPM / 5252
Torque in physics terms is a measure of rotational force, not work. Power would be what hp is. And hp and tq are not directly porportional at any given RPM. After 5250 RPM's, they are indirectly porportional.
Proof:
The concept of torque in physics originated with the work of Archimedes on levers. Informally, torque can be thought of as "rotational force". The weight that rests on a lever, multiplied by its distance from the lever's fulcrum, is the torque. For example, a weight of three newtons resting two metres from the fulcrum exerts the same torque as one newton resting six metres from the fulcrum. This assumes the force is in a direction at right angles to a straight lever. More generally, one may define torque as the cross product:
where r is the vector from the axis of rotation to the point on which the force is acting, and F is the vector of force. Torque is important in the design of machines such as engines.
Torque has dimensions of distance force; the same as energy. However, the units of torque are usually stated as "newton metres" or "foot pounds" rather than joules. Of course this is not simply a coincidence - a torque of 1 Nm applied through a full revolution will require an energy of exactly 2π J ? mathematically, E = τ θ, where E is the energy and θ is the angle moved, in radians.
That being said, read on:
Hp is a measure of power. Power = work/time. And if work = Force * distance , we can substitute the equation for work into the equation for power and get:
Power = (Force * distance) / time.
This looks an awful lot like the equation for hp:
HP = {[Torque (Force) * Revolutions (distance)] / Minute (time)} / 5250 (Unit conversion factor).
Cliff Notes:
Horsepower is a measure of power. It is a measure of work done over a certain amount on time.
Torque is a measure of instantanious force at any given time.