How Clutches Work" If you drive a manual transmission car, you may be surprised to find out that it has more than one clutch. And it turns out that folks with automatic transmission cars have clutches, too. In fact, there are clutches in many things you probably see or use every day: Many cordless drills have a clutch, chain saws have a centrifugal clutch and even some yo-yos have a clutch. In this article, you'll learn why you need a clutch, how the clutch in your car works and find out some interesting, and perhaps surprising, places where clutches can be found. Clutches are useful in devices that have two rotating shafts. In a car, you need a clutch because the engine spins all the time, but the car's wheels do not. To understand how a clutch works, it helps to know a little bit about friction, which is a measure of how hard it is to slide one object over another. A clutch works because of friction between a clutch plate and a flywheel.
How CVTs Work" How Gear Ratios Work" How Horsepower Works" Chances are you've heard about horsepower. Just about every car ad on TV mentions it, people talking about their cars bandy the word about and even most lawn mowers have a big sticker on them to tell you the horsepower rating. But what is horsepower, and what does the horsepower rating mean in terms of performance? In this article, you'll learn exactly what horsepower is and how you can apply it to your everyday life. The term horsepower was invented by the engineer James Watt. Watt lived from 1736 to 1819 and is most famous for his work on improving the performance of steam engines. We are also reminded of him every day when we talk about 60-watt light bulbs. The story goes that Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals.
What horsepower means is this: In Watt's judgement, one horse can do 33,000 foot-pounds of work every minute. Horsepower can be converted into other units as well. How Manual Transmissions Work"