Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Horsepower

Everyday we hear the word horsepower as it relates to machinery; most people know that it has something to do with how fast a car is able to travel; the question today is to research the idea on the internet and explain it to me in a paragraph on the comments page.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

When the steam engine began to do the work of horses in the mines during the early 1800's, the mine owners began to ask how many horses an engine would replace. James Watt, who made steam engines, figured out a mathematical way to equate horses to engine power. So, the term horsepower was invented.

It is also use in scientific location such as Horsepower = (Force ´ 2p ´ Radius ´ RPM) / 33,000

This equation can be simplified by dividing 2p into both terms, which will give you:

Horsepower = ( Force ´ Radius ´ RPM) / 5,250

Anonymous said...

is the name of several non-metric units of power. In scientific discourse, the term "horsepower" is rarely used because of its various definitions and the already existent SI unit for power, the watt (W). However, use of the term "horsepower" persists as a legacy in many languages and industries, particularly as a unit of measurement of the maximum power output of internal-combustion engines of automobiles; and often of trucks, buses, and ships. The use of 'HP' is being slowly replaced by kW (kilowatt) and MW (megawatt).

Anonymous said...

is the name of several non-metric units of power. In scientific discourse, the term "horsepower" is rarely used because of its various definitions and the already existent SI unit for power, the watt (W). However, use of the term "horsepower" persists as a legacy in many languages and industries, particularly as a unit of measurement of the maximum power output of internal-combustion engines of automobiles; and often of trucks, buses, and ships. The use of 'HP' is being slowly replaced by kW (kilowatt) and MW (megawatt).

Anonymous said...

is the name of several non-metric units of power. In scientific discourse, the term "horsepower" is rarely used because of its various definitions and the already existent SI unit for power, the watt (W). However, use of the term "horsepower" persists as a legacy in many languages and industries, particularly as a unit of measurement of the maximum power output of internal-combustion engines of automobiles; and often of trucks, buses, and ships. The use of 'HP' is being slowly replaced by kW (kilowatt) and MW (megawatt).

Anonymous said...

The term "horsepower" was coined by the engineer James Watt in 1782 while working in the performance of steam engines. This occurred while using a mine pony to lift coal out of a coal mine. He conceived the idea of defining the power exerted by these animals to accomplish this work. He found that, on the average, a mine pony could pull (lift by means of a pulley) 22,000 foot-pounds per minute. Rather than call this "pony" power, he may have increased these test results by 50 percent, and called it horsepower i.e. 33,000 foot-pounds of work per minute.

Anonymous said...

Horsepower is defined as work done over time. The exact definition of one horsepower is 33,000 lb.ft./minute. Put another way, if you were to lift 33,000 pounds one foot over a period of one minute, you would have been working at the rate of one horsepower. In this case, you'd have expended one horsepower-minute of energy.

Anonymous said...

Horsepower is defined as work done over time. The exact definition of one horsepower is 33,000 lb.ft./minute. Put another way, if you were to lift 33,000 pounds one foot over a period of one minute, you would have been working at the rate of one horsepower. In this case, you'd have expended one horsepower-minute of energy.

Anonymous said...

Kevin S. 88992

Horsepower (hp or HP[1]) is the name of several non-metric units of power. In scientific discourse, the term "horsepower" is rarely used because of its various definitions and the already existent SI unit for power, the watt (W). However, use of the term "horsepower" persists as a legacy in many languages and industries, particularly as a unit of measurement of the maximum power output of internal-combustion engines of automobiles; and often of trucks, buses, and ships. The use of 'HP' is being slowly replaced by kW (kilowatt) and MW (megawatt).

There are two important factors to consider when evaluating the measurement of "horsepower":

The inconsistent definitions of the "horsepower" unit itself
The various standards used in measuring the value of "horsepower"
These factors can be combined in unexpected ways — the power output for an engine rated at "100 horsepower" might not be what a reader expects. For this reason, various groups have attempted to standardize not only the definition of "horsepower" but the measurement of "horsepower". In the interim, more confusion may surface.

Anonymous said...

The development of the steam engine provided a reason to equate the output of horses with the engines that could replace them. In 1702, Thomas Savery wrote in The Miner's Friend: "So that an engine which will raise as much water as two horses, working together at one time in such a work, can do, and for which there must be constantly kept ten or twelve horses for doing the same. Then I say, such an engine may be made large enough to do the work required in employing eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty horses to be constantly maintained and kept for doing such a work..." The term "horsepower" was coined later by James Watt to help market his improved steam engine. He had previously agreed to take royalties of one third of the savings in coal from the older Newcomen steam engines.[2] This royalty scheme did not work with customers who did not have existing steam engines but used horses instead. Watt determined that a horse could turn a mill wheel 144 times in an hour (or 2.4 times a minute). The wheel was 12 feet in radius, therefore the horse travelled 2.4 × 2π × 12 feet in one minute. Watt judged that the horse could pull with a force of 180 pounds (assuming that the measurements of mass were equivalent to measurements of force in pounds-force, which were not well-defined units at the time). So:


This was rounded to an even 33,000 ft·lbf/min.[3]

Others recount that Watt determined that a pony could lift an average 220 pounds 100 feet (30 m) per minute over a four-hour working shift. Watt then judged a horse was 50% more powerful than a pony and thus arrived at the 33,000 ft·lbf/min figure.

Engineering in History recounts that John Smeaton initially estimated that a horse could produce 22,916-foot-pounds per minute. John Desaguliers increased that to 27,500-foot-pounds per minute. "Watt found by experiment in 1782 that a 'brewery horse' was able to produce 32,400-foot-pounds per minute". James Watt and Matthew Boulton standardized that figure at 33,000 the next year.[4]

Put into perspective, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see Orders of magnitude (power)) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely, and trained athletes can manage up to about 0.3 horsepower for a period of several hours.

Most observers familiar with horses and their capabilities estimate that Watt was either a bit optimistic or intended to under promise and over deliver; few horses can maintain that effort for long. Regardless, comparison to a horse proved to be an enduring marketing tool.

Kevin S. 88992