Explain the hp of a motor.?

Question

not with equations. theoritically

Answer 1

A horse power is a unit of work.  One horsepower equals 1 pound pulled up 550 feet, or a 550 pound block pulled up to a height of 1 foot- the same amount of work has been done.

Electrically, a horsepower is equal to about 750 watts.  A vacuum cleaner is about 1/2 horsepower.

The wifes hair dryer is about 1 and a half horsepower give or take a bit.

Gas engines, are funny critters- the engine manufacturer wants to sell you the biggest engine for the most amount of money.  Which means they're not exactly honest on how big of a motor you really need.

A 12' alumium Smokercraft boat, is rated for about 7.5 HP, and will burn roughly 1 gallon an hour at max speed of around 17 knots.

A 40' Cruise-a-home houseboat, normally has 2 each inline 6 cylinder gasoline engines, each producing around 110 HP, for a cruising speed of around 18 knots, and drinking 10 gallons per hour, give or take a bit.

Answer 2

hp -how much work an engine (or whatever) can do.

torque - is how much work it does do.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhor...

http://www.car-videos.net/articles/horse...

Answer 3

Horsepower (hp) is the name of several non-metric units of power. In scientific discourse, the term "horsepower" is seen as inferior and 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 in the automotive industry because of their continued advertising of maximum power output of internal-combustion engines in "horsepower" units of measurement.

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.

The following definitions have been widely used:

Mechanical horsepower ≡ 33,000 ft·lbf/min

= 550 ft·lbf/s

= 745.69987158227022 W (exactly)



Metric horsepower ≡ 75 kgf·m/s

= 735.49875 W (exactly)



Electrical horsepower ≡746 W

Boiler horsepower ≡ 33,475 Btu/h

=9809.5 W



Hydraulic horsepower merely mechanical horsepower; can be calculated by multiplying the specific units of US gal/min times pressure in psi (lbf/in²) then dividing by 1714

Additionally, the term "horsepower" has been applied to calculated (estimated rather than measured) metrics:

RAC horsepower is based solely on the dimensions of a piston engine (1 liter of engine displacement is equal to 10 RAC horsepower)