Why is the engine power is usually measured in horsepower

Horsepower was originally a clever marketing hodom

This unit of measurement of engine power introduced the use of the Scottish engineer James Watt (W). In the early 1780s, he invented the steam engine, are far superior to classic technical characteristics Newcomen steam engine. Watt was looking for a way to sell his invention and cited as an advantage the fact that the engine uses 75% less fuel.

At first he tried to sell his engine for royalty scheme - customers had to give him a third of the money saved on fuel. While many still use horses instead of steam engines, so it is advisable to compare were just animals. Watt refused royalty scheme and decided to try another tactic to persuade people to buy its engine.

He invented a new unit of measurement - horsepower that was intuitive to customers. The basis he took a high draft horses and some calculated how much energy can produce a typical horse. What kind of experiment is Watt is unknown, but in the end he realized that 60 seconds of a typical horse roughly equal 43,928, 5 joules of energy. Then he rounded the result to 45,000 joules and got one horsepower.



In truth, it is the result of overvalued - very few horses can work the whole day. In addition, overestimating what could make a horse, Wyatt realized that his product is much more productive than the horses, and what buyers said. A clever marketing ploy, is not it?

In the end, the engine invented by Watt played a huge role in the Industrial Revolution. Due to this fact, introduced them to a unit of measurement of engine power has also become popular. Nowadays, we often use the SI system, and that Watts, named after James Watt, has replaced horsepower.

via factroom.ru