Sunday, January 19, 2014

How to Calculate Engine Power in the Metric System

How to Calculate Engine Power in the Metric System

Nearly every car commercial boasts about the car engines horsepower. But for people outside the U.S., or with a scientific background but not a car background, it may be unclear how much power a horsepower truly is. One horsepower is defined as 33,000 lb*ft/min (pounds times feet divided by minutes). So, converting horsepower into the metric system is simply a matter of converting the separate units of force, distance and time to arrive at a value in Nm/s (Newtons times meters divided by seconds), also known as Watts.

Instructions

    1

    Convert pounds to Newtons using the conversion factor 4.448 N/lb. If we take the original figure of 33,000 lb*ft/min and multiply by 4.448 N/lb, we get 146,784 N*ft/min.

    2

    Convert feet to meters using the conversion factor 0.3048 m/ft. If we multiply this by 146,784 N*ft/min (our figure from step 1), we get 44,740 N*m/min.

    3

    Convert minutes to seconds using the obvious conversion factor 60 s/min. Because minutes is in the denominator of our figure, we must divide the figure by this conversion factor to get the minutes to cancel out. 44,740 N*m/min divided by 60 s/min yields 745.7 N*m/s, or 745.7 W.

    4

    Calculate the metric power of an engine from its horsepower rating using this figure. Since we know that 1 horsepower = 745.7 W, we can simply multiply the horsepower of an engine by 745.7 to arrive at a value in Watts. For example, a 300 horsepower engine puts out 300 * 745.7 = 223,700 W, or 223.7 kW.


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