The newton-metre or newton-meter (also non-hyphenated, newton metre or newton meter; symbol N⋅m or N m) is the unit of torque (also called ) in the International System of Units (SI). One newton-metre is equal to the torque resulting from a force of one newton applied perpendicularly to the end of a moment arm that is one metre long.
The unit is also used less commonly as a unit of work, or energy, in which case it is equivalent to the more common and standard SI unit of energy, the joule.[For example: Eshbach's handbook of engineering fundamentals - 10.4 Engineering Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer "In SI units the basic unit of energy is newton-metre".] In this usage the metre term represents the distance travelled or displacement in the direction of the force, and not the perpendicular distance from a fulcrum (i.e. the lever arm length) as it does when used to express torque. This usage is generally discouraged,[Fundamentals of Physics, 9th edition by Halliday Resnick Walker, p. 309. "The SI unit of torque is the newton-meter. In our discussion of energy we called this combination the joule. But torque is not work and torque should be expressed in newton-meters, not joules. google books link] since it can lead to confusion as to whether a given quantity expressed in newton-metres is a torque or a quantity of energy.[ "Even though torque has the same dimension as energy (SI unit joule), the joule is never used for expressing torque".]
Newton-metres and joules are dimensionally equivalent in the sense that they have the same expression in SI base units,
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but are distinguished in terms of applicable kind of quantity, to avoid misunderstandings when a torque is mistaken for an energy or vice versa. Similar examples of dimensionally equivalent units include Pa versus J/m3, Becquerel versus Hertz, and ohm versus ohm per square.
Conversion factors
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1 newton-metre ≈ 0.73756215 pound-force-feet
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1 pound-foot ≡ 1 pound-force-foot ≈ 1.35581795 N⋅m
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1 ounce-inch ≡ 1 ounce-force-inch ≈ 7.06155181 mN⋅m (millinewton-metres)
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1 dyne-centimetre = 10−7 N⋅m
See also
Notes