Horsepower ( hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the imperial horsepower as in "hp" or "bhp" which is about , and the metric horsepower also represented as "cv" or "PS" which is approximately . The electric horsepower "hpE" is exactly , while the boiler horsepower is 9809.5 or 9811 watts, depending on the exact year.
The term was adopted in the late 18th century by Scottish people engineer James Watt to compare the output of with the power of . It was later expanded to include the output power of other power-generating machinery such as piston engines, , and . The definition of the unit varied among geographical regions. Most countries now use the SI unit watt for measurement of power. With the implementation of the EU Directive 80/181/EEC on 1 January 2010, the use of horsepower in the EU is permitted only as a supplementary unit.
The idea was later used by James Watt to help market the Watt steam engine, an improved Newcomen steam engine. He had previously agreed to take royalties of one-third of the savings in coal from the older Newcomen steam engines. 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 Horse mill 144 times in an hour (or 2.4 times a minute).Hart-Davis, Adam (2012). Engineers. Dorling Kindersley. p. 121. The wheel was in radius; therefore, the horse travelled feet in one minute. Watt judged that the horse could pull with a force of . So:
Engineering in History recounts that John Smeaton initially estimated that a horse could produce per minute. John Desaguliers had previously suggested per minute, and Thomas Tredgold suggested per minute. "Watt found by experiment in 1782 that a 'Draft horse' could produce per minute." James Watt and Matthew Boulton standardized that figure at per minute the next year.
A common legend states that the unit was created when one of Watt's first customers, a brewer, specifically demanded an engine that would match a horse, and chose the strongest horse he had and driving it to the limit. In that legend, Watt accepted the challenge and built a machine that was actually even stronger than the figure achieved by the brewer, and the output of that machine became the horsepower.
In 1993, R. D. Stevenson and R. J. Wassersug published correspondence in Nature summarizing measurements and calculations of peak and sustained work rates of a horse. Citing measurements made at the 1925 Iowa State Fair, they reported that the peak power over a few seconds has been measured to be as high as and also observed that for sustained activity, a work rate of about per horse is consistent with agricultural advice from both the 19th and 20th centuries and also consistent with a work rate of about four times the basal rate expended by other vertebrates for sustained activity.
When considering Human power, a healthy human can produce about briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about indefinitely; trained athletes can manage up to about brieflyEugene A. Avallone et al., (ed), Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers 11th Edition , Mc-Graw Hill, New York 2007, , page 9-4. and for a period of several hours. The Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt produced a maximum of 0.89 seconds into his 9.58 second sprint world record in 2009.
In 2023 a group of engineers modified a dynamometer to be able to measure how much power a horse can produce. This horse was measured to .
The constant 5252 is the Rounding value of (33,000 ft⋅lbf/min)/(2π rad/rev).
When torque is in inch-pounds,
The constant 63,025 is the approximation of
1 hp | ≡ 33,000 ft·lbf/min | by definition | |
= 550 ft⋅lbf/s | since | 1 min = 60 s | |
= 550 × 0.3048 × 0.45359237 m⋅kilogram-force/s | since | 1 ft ≡ 0.3048 m and 1 lb ≡ 0.45359237 kg | |
= 76.0402249068 kgf⋅m/s | |||
= 76.0402249068 × 9.80665 kg⋅m2/s3 | since | g = 9.80665 m/s2 | |
= 745.69987158227022 W ≈ 745.700 W | since | 1 W ≡ 1 joule/s = 1 N⋅m/s = 1 (kg⋅m/s2)⋅(m/s) |
Or given that 1 hp = 550 ft⋅lbf/s, 1 ft = 0.3048 m, 1 lbf ≈ 4.448 N, 1 J = 1 N⋅m, 1 W = 1 J/s: 1 hp ≈ 745.7 W
DIN 66036 defines one metric horsepower (Pferdestärke, or PS) as the power to raise a mass of 75 kilograms against the Earth's gravitational force over a distance of one metre in one second: = 75 Kilogram-force⋅m/s = 1 PS. This is equivalent to 735.49875 W, or 98.6% of an imperial horsepower. In 1972, the PS was replaced by the kilowatt as the official power-measuring unit in EEC directives.
Other names for the metric horsepower are the Italian cavallo vapore (cv), Dutch paardenkracht (pk), the French cheval-vapeur (ch), the Spanish caballo de vapor and Portuguese cavalo-vapor (cv), the Russian лошадиная сила (л. с.), the Swedish hästkraft (hk), the Finnish hevosvoima (hv), the Estonian hobujõud (hj), the Norwegian and Danish hestekraft (hk), the Hungarian lóerő (LE), the Czech koňská síla and Slovak konská sila (k or ks), the Serbo-Croatian konjska snaga (KS), the Bulgarian конска сила, the Macedonian коњска сила (KC), the Polish koń mechaniczny (KM) (), Slovenian konjska moč (KM), the Ukrainian кінська сила (к. с.), the Romanian cal-putere (CP), and the German Pferdestärke (PS).
In the 19th century, revolutionary-era France had its own unit used to replace the cheval vapeur (horsepower); based on a 100 kilogram-force⋅m/s standard, it was called the poncelet and was abbreviated p.
Drilling rigs are powered mechanically by rotating the drill pipe from above. Hydraulic power is still needed though, as 1 500 to 5 000 W are required to push drilling mud through the drill bit to clear waste rock. Additional hydraulic power may also be used to drive a down-hole mud motor to power directional drilling.
When using SI units, the equation becomes coherent and there is no dividing constant.
The term "boiler horsepower" was originally developed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, where the best steam engines of that period were tested. The average steam consumption of those engines (per output horsepower) was determined to be the evaporation of of water per hour, based on feed water at , and saturated steam generated at . This original definition is equivalent to a boiler heat output of . A few years later in 1884, the ASME re-defined the boiler horsepower as the thermal output equal to the evaporation of 34.5 pounds per hour of water "from and at" . This considerably simplified boiler testing, and provided more accurate comparisons of the boilers at that time. This revised definition is equivalent to a boiler heat output of . Present industrial practice is to define "boiler horsepower" as a boiler thermal output equal to , which is very close to the original and revised definitions.
Boiler horsepower is still used to measure boiler output in industrial boiler engineering in the US. Boiler horsepower is abbreviated BHP, which is also used in many places to symbolize brake horsepower.
If the drawbar force () is measured in pounds-force (lbf) and speed () is measured in miles per hour (mph), then the drawbar power () in horsepower (hp) is
Example: How much power is needed to pull a drawbar load of 2,025 pounds-force at 5 miles per hour?
The constant 375 is because 1 hp = 375 lbf⋅mph. If other units are used, the constant is different. When using coherent SI units (watts, newtons, and metres per second), no constant is needed, and the formula becomes .
This formula may also be used to calculate the power of a jet engine, using the speed of the jet and the thrust required to maintain that speed.
Example: how much power is generated with a thrust of 4000 pounds at 400 miles per hour?
Taxable horsepower does not reflect developed horsepower; rather, it is a calculated figure based on the engine's bore size, number of cylinders, and a (now archaic) presumption of engine efficiency. As new engines were designed with ever-increasing efficiency, it was no longer a useful measure, but was kept in use by UK regulations, which used the rating for tax horsepower. The United Kingdom was not the only country that used the RAC rating; many states in Australia used RAC hp to determine taxation. The RAC formula was sometimes applied in British colonies as well, such as Kenya Colony.
where
Since taxable horsepower was computed based on bore and number of cylinders, not based on actual displacement, it gave rise to engines with "undersquare" dimensions (bore smaller than stroke), which tended to impose an artificially low limit on rotational speed, hampering the potential power output and efficiency of the engine.
The situation persisted for several generations of four- and six-cylinder British engines: For example, Jaguar Cars 3.4-litre XK engine of the 1950s had six cylinders with a bore of and a stroke of , where most American automakers had long since moved to oversquare (large bore, short stroke) V8 engines. See, for example, the early .
In general:
All the above assumes that no power inflation factors have been applied to any of the readings.
Engine designers use expressions other than horsepower to denote objective targets or performance, such as brake mean effective pressure (BMEP). This is a coefficient of theoretical brake horsepower and cylinder pressures during combustion.
Nominal horsepower = 7 × area of piston in square inches × equivalent piston speed in feet per minute/33,000.
For paddle ships, the Admiralty rule was that the piston speed in feet per minute was taken as 129.7 × (stroke)1/3.38. For screw steamers, the intended piston speed was used.
The stroke (or length of stroke) was the distance moved by the piston measured in feet.
For the nominal horsepower to equal the actual power it would be necessary for the mean steam pressure in the cylinder during the stroke to be and for the piston speed to be that generated by the assumed relationship for paddle ships.
The French Navy used the same definition of nominal horsepower as the Royal Navy.
Indicated horsepower was a better measure of engine power than nominal horsepower (nhp) because it took account of steam pressure. But unlike later measures such as shaft horsepower (shp) and brake horsepower (bhp), it did not take into account power losses due to the machinery internal frictional losses, such as a piston sliding within the cylinder, plus bearing friction, transmission and gear box friction, etc.
In Europe, the DIN 70020 standard tests the engine fitted with all ancillaries and the exhaust system as used in the car. The older American standard (SAE gross horsepower, referred to as bhp) used an engine without alternator, water pump, and other auxiliary components such as power steering pump, muffled exhaust system, etc., so the figures were higher than the European figures for the same engine. The newer American standard (referred to as SAE net horsepower) tests an engine with all the auxiliary components (see "Engine power test standards" below).
Brake refers to the device which is used to provide an equal braking force, load to balance, or equal an engine's output force and hold it at a desired rotational speed. During testing, the output torque and rotational speed are measured to determine the brake horsepower. Horsepower was originally measured and calculated by use of the "indicator diagram" (a James Watt invention of the late 18th century), and later by means of a Prony brake connected to the engine's output shaft. Modern use any of several braking methods to measure the engine's brake horsepower, the actual output of the engine itself, before losses to the drivetrain.
Equivalent shaft horsepower (eshp) is sometimes used to rate turboprop engines. It includes the equivalent power derived from residual jet thrust from the turbine exhaust. of residual jet thrust is estimated to be produced from one unit of horsepower.
A few manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota switched to the new ratings immediately.Jeff Plungis, Asians Oversell Horsepower, Detroit News The rating for Toyota's Toyota Camry 3.0 L 1MZ-FE V6 fell from . The company's Lexus ES 330 and Camry SE V6 (3.3 L V6) were previously rated at but the ES 330 dropped to while the Camry declined to . The first engine certified under the new program was the 7.0 L LS7 used in the 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. Certified power rose slightly from .
While Toyota and Honda are retesting their entire vehicle lineups, other automakers generally are retesting only those with updated powertrains. For example, the 2006 Ford Five Hundred is rated at , the same as that of 2005 model. However, the 2006 rating does not reflect the new SAE testing procedure, as Ford did not opt to incur the extra expense of retesting its existing engines. Over time, most automakers are expected to comply with the new guidelines.
SAE tightened its horsepower rules to eliminate the opportunity for engine manufacturers to manipulate factors affecting performance such as how much oil was in the crankcase, engine control system calibration, and whether an engine was tested with high octane fuel. In some cases, such can add up to a change in horsepower ratings.
Indicated horsepower
Brake horsepower
Shaft horsepower
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved 2016-12-06. Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random House Inc. Retrieved 2016-12-06. Shaft horsepower is a common rating for turboshaft and turboprop engines, industrial turbines, and some marine applications.
Engine power test standards
Society of Automotive Engineers/SAE International
Early "SAE horsepower"
SAE gross power
SAE net power
SAE certified power
Deutsches Institut für Normung 70020 (DIN 70020)
CUNA
Economic Commission for Europe R24
Economic Commission for Europe R85
80/1269/EEC
International Organization for Standardization
Japanese Industrial Standard D 1001
See also
External links
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