Question

What are torques and how do you figure them out?

Answer 1

A torque is just the same as a moment of a force. One can think of it as the amount of force needed to be applied an object certain distance from a pivot (or from the centre of mass of an object) to make the object rotate. It can be expressed in equation form as \[T=F\times d\]where F is the force, and d is the distance from the centre of mass or pivot. As you can see this is the same equation as work done, or for the moment of a force, and hence, torque is really the work done on (or by an object) by a force applied a particular distance from the centre or picot of that object.

Answer 2

torque is defined as twisting effect of force...........

Answer 3

Hannah, here is an answer I gave elsewhere earlier... Hope it helps. When you turn anything, a tap, a screwdriver, a dial on a radio, you are exerting a torque. A torque is a force (or forces) at a radial distance from where it acts.

It might help to think of the steering wheel of a car. When you steer to the right, your right hand pulls down on the rim and your left hand pushes up on the rim. These two forces produce a torque about the steering column which rotates the steering wheel. If the push and the pull force are the same (F), though usually they are not, the resultant torque is equal to F x d, where d is the diameter of the steering wheel. This explains why larger vehicles tend to have larger steering wheels. If you don't drive yet, the same argument is true of a bicycle's handlebars.