What exactly is torque?

Question

And how does it effect the performance of my car? Is it a good idea to drive at the rpm that produces the most torque?

Answer 1

hey



torque is the feeling you get in ur backside when u take off from your best torque range.......its ur acceleration and the better your torque the better your take off and acceleration............your torque affects your horsepower and no it is not a gud idea to drive at the rpm that produces most torque because then you would be driving at high speed all the time.... so just stick to normal driving

Answer 2

http://craig.backfire.ca/pages/autos/horsepower



Chigga I suppose u'd somehoe find ur answer here with the concepts explained. Infact I'm glad u asked this Q refreshed my physics lol. It's best idea to drive when ur car has max. power built up due to acceleration. :)



A little conclusion from the site i mentioned above:



Shaft power is the product of shaft speed and torque, and the speed and torque can be altered proportionally using gears. If we want to apply a lot of torque to a quickly spinning shaft, we need a lot of power. The more power the better. However, the power must be accessible from all vehicle speeds, which can only be accomplished by producing a lot of torque throughout the rev range, or by having a lot of transmission gears. It is this fact that has spawned phrases like "Torque is King", or "Horsepower sells cars, but torque wins races", which can be misleading. A torque on its own isn't useful in accelerating a vehicle, because it is not at rest; it is moving. Therefore, power is what matters. Cars are often described by their power-to-weight ratio, not their torque-to-weight ratio.



The vehicle with the largest average acceleration is the one that has the largest average force going to the pavement through a wide range of speeds.

Answer 3

When most people talk about horsepower, they also (or really) mean torque. Torque is the turning force. If you were trying to turn a bolt using a wrench, the force you apply is torque. You can apply more torque by forcing harder or getting a longer wrench.



Horsepower comes in when you figure in RPM. There isn't any real simple way to describe Horsepower other than power once the car is moving.



You can think of torque as the force/power that get you going off the line (stand still). You can think of horsepower as the force/power that get you to pass other cars on HWY.

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If I remember correctly HP = torque * RPM / 5252.

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Is it a good idea to drive at RPM produce the most torque? Not really good or bad (mechanically). But you'll feel more "power" at that RPM.

Answer 4

In physics, torque (or often called a moment) can informally be thought of as "rotational force" or "angular force" which causes a change in rotational motion. This force is defined by linear force multiplied by a radius.



Torque is part of the basic specification of an engine: the power output of an engine is expressed as its torque multiplied by its rotational speed. Internal-combustion engines produce useful torque only over a limited range of rotational speeds (typically from around 1,000–6,000 rpm for a small car). The varying torque output over that range can be measured with a dynamometer, and shown as a torque curve. The peak of that torque curve usually occurs somewhat below the overall power peak. The torque peak cannot, by definition, appear at higher rpm than the power peak.



Understanding the relationship between torque, power and engine speed is vital in automotive engineering, concerned as it is with transmitting power from the engine through the drive train to the wheels. Typically power is a function of torque and engine speed. The gearing of the drive train must be chosen appropriately to make the most of the motor's torque characteristics.



Steam engines and electric motors tend to produce maximum torque close to zero rpm, with the torque diminishing as rotational speed rises (due to increasing friction and other constraints). Therefore, these types of engines usually have quite different types of drivetrains from internal combustion engines.



Torque is also the easiest way to explain mechanical advantage in just about every simple machine.