Horse Power and its Effectiveness

[digi]

interesting thoughts,

but you forgot torque. my understanding, hosepower is the ability to do
torque over time. it takes time to reach the torque peak, more horse power
the quicker it can reach that.

g-force is a result of torque. your mass, has the resistance of gravity,
it is holding you back, thats what pushes you into your seat. torque
accelerates the vehicle, and everything thats bolted down, you feel the
pressure of being accelerated.

now were getting into inertia stuff. in space, where there is no gravity,
t every action has a equal and opposite reaction. if you accelerate to
100mph, and maintain it exactly (in theory), if you dont move you shouldnt
feel it.

however, if you move, then you feel the velocity. as very slightly, every
action has a equal and opposite reaction. it'll produce resistance to the
acceleration, causing you body to feel deacceleration, then, acceleration
by the vehicle.

im probably grossly wrong here. but my understanding is that gravity is
providing the only resistance, which is in the force pulling down, which
in turn produces friction etc etc and makes it what requires so much power
to accelerate.

horsepower is directly related to g-force, however, its not just your own
mass that it is accelerating, it is the mass of the entire transport
mechanism your in.

which to measure acceleration by power, you must divide the mass by power.

these are just guesses, i have no real refrences. so please, please, feel
free to correct me if im wrong.

just some thoughts, in the never ending quest for knowledge.

more people will correct your bluff than answer your question.

> Hiya All,
> 
> I've just got a few theories about horsepower and was wondering if
> anybody could comment on them and tell me if I'm actually leading myself
> astray.
> 
> Right, firstly lets get a few things sorted out.
> 
> Power = Mass x Velocity x Acceleration
> 
> 
> Ok, so for the guys who like SPEED or velocity, it doesn't mean that a
> car producing more horsepower is necessarily going to be quicker than a
> car producing less horsepower since horsepower is proportional to mass.
> e.g. A small plane maybe very heavy.. I dunno, lets say 20 Tonnes... but
> a small car like maybe a Porshe or something could still beat it on a
> take-off run, BUT the plane must be producing A LOT of horsepower
> compared to the car just because it is a lot of times bigger, and the
> engine can cope with that mass. Its speed and acceleration which count.
> 
> Ok, Another example but same principle. If you get a car and increase
> its Power, than its Velocity or Acceleration must be increased.
> 
> SUMMARY of last 2 points: A car which produces MORE horsepower than
> another car doesn't necessarily make it faster, but has the ability to
> move heavier MASS around.
> 
> RIGHT.
> 
> Maximum Horsepower and Speed/Acceleration
> 
> Ok, If I'm not wrong, I guess most people are looking for SPEED and
> ACCELERATION, but I know a few people still like bulky and big cars
> which are like Tanks, but just for this conversation, lets say that we
> want SPEED and ACCELERATION.
> 
> Ok, what is stumping me, is MAXIMUM horsepower and its relation to
> Quarter of Mile times. I believe that it has NO direct relation... Ok,
> here's my theory.
> 
> Firstly we know that Power is the rate of doing Work...
> 
> ie. Power = Work / Time
> 
> We can see that in the Power formula...
> 
> Power = Mass x Velocity x Acceleration
> 
> And acceleration is change in velocity over change in time, soo...
> 
> Power = Mass x Velocity x (dV/dT)
>                           
> Right, that all makes sense... but what about the famous dyno graphs
> that we all see, and the little pointer saying that it reached MAX
> horsepower at some RPM ... etc...
> So that means that these calculations must showing the Power at an
> instanious time, so JUST because a car is producing MAX horsepower at
> some point, how does that indicate its performance over the whole range?
> Shouldn't we be comparing the AVERAGE horsepower in the whole dyno run?
> It makes logical sense that the car is producing more POWER at a faster
> RPM or heavier load, since your making IT work harder and FASTER... but
> it takes TIME to hit the maximum horsepower point, so what does it have
> to do with the rest of the run???
> 
> Ok, here's another example to prove my point... 
> If a car was in a quarter of a mile race, and it was working real fine,
> and say it started off fine, reached its max horsepower at say the
> length of 1/2 the track but then blew the engine and didn't manage to
> finish the track... HIGHLY hypothetical OK? But, I mean if you take the
> max horsepower, it doesn't MEAN that it was running well, but if you
> take the average... you'll find it never REACHED the end of the race... 
> SO... 
> Average Horsepower = Horsepower / Time
> 
> And since Time is infinite, the average was Zero... I'm not sure, but
> isn't the area of the graph the total horsepower???
> 
> So, is this theory totally wrong? Can somebody argue this or support
> this theory?
> This was caused by a real life situation below.
> Australia Commodore VR... 5.0 Stroked Blown Engine producing 500 HP.
> Australia Commodore VS... 5.0 Stroked Blown Engine producing 340 HP.
> 
> Both were about the same mass, similiar max boost levels, but totally
> different setups, like when the supercharger was most effective, and
> stuff like that. Anyway, the 500 HP ended up doing a 15 sec time.. and
> the 340 HP was doing 11 secs... So this has got to mean something?
> 
> Ok.. One more topic with relation to horsepower...
> 
> Horsepower and G-force
> 
> Ok, I've heard this to many a time. When you feel the car accelerating,
> and you get thrown back into the seat, people say that its horsepower...
> But this can't be the case... Ok. Plane example all over again.
> If the plane is moving slowing but accelerating... it still would be
> producing A LOT of horsepower, and you won't really feel a thing right?
> say at about 5 km/h with a 0.1 ms-2 acceleration? ok... Right right...
> Next.. A REALLY fast car, can push you a lot deeper into your seat...
> Why you ask? Well, its not horsepower, its not torque, and its not the
> twilight zone... ITS G-FORCE... 
> 
> If you look up G-FORCE in the dictionary, or some fancy science
> dictionary, it will say that 1 G (ONE GEE) is when a body is
> accelerating at 9.8 ms-2. Ok, thats the same G units in space craft
> travel, the same G in the planes and stuff. They say that a human can
> only experience about 4 Gs before they start feeling faint since the
> blood pools in the body so you don't get enough of it were it counts...
> Yeah, your HEAD buddy. Right, before I get too far into this... This
> feeling you get which pushes you back into your seat ISN'T horsepower,
> its simply G-FORCE, which is the acceleration. You might say that 
> if you get more horsepower you get more Gs but that's just misleading...
> so get the terminology RIGHT guys.
> 
> Ok guys, thanx for listen to me spill my guts, but I thought that I had
> to say something since I keep on hearing these things... Its sorta the
> same thing with weight and mass, if you know what I mean, and mumbo
> jumbo like that just gets us all confused.
> 
> Andrew Wakeling.
>