What Is Torque on a Lawnmower?

Torque Basics

• Torque constitutes rotational force or strength, usually measured in foot-pounds. For instance, assume you use a 2-foot wrench for a job and apply 5 pounds of pressure to the wrench – you exert 10 foot-pounds of torque. Various factors impact the effectiveness of torque.

  For instance, force applied on a straight line at 20 foot-pounds provides greater efficiency than torque applied in a diagonal line at 20-foot pounds because it more effectively facilitates circular motion. It does so driving all force in a single direction, rather than expending energy moving force both upward or downward and forward.

What it Means

• Torque denotes the strength of a force. It only measures the amount of force applied or generated, not the speed at which you generate it. For instance, if you and a friend both apply 10 foot-pounds of torque to a wrench, but your friend moves more quickly, you can finish the same job at completely different times using the same amount of torque. With an engine, torque measures the force generated when the rotating elements of an engine, such as a camshaft, turn things like wheel axles and augers on everything from cars to snow blowers and lawnmowers.

Lawnmower Torque

• Lawnmower manufacturers use torque as a unit of measure for two reasons: to describe both overall engine power and rotational strength. The blades of a lawnmower connect directly to a mechanism in the engine that generates rotational force or receives it from the camshaft. Because of this, torque describes the strength with which blades rotate, therefore ostensibly describing the effectiveness of a mower – the higher the torque rating, the stronger the blade rotation. Overall torque for riding mowers also describes the strength with which the engine turns the wheel axis. Keep in mind that torque does not denote speed.

Torque, Horsepower and Power

• Torque differs from horsepower, and both of these measurements differ from overall power. Horsepower measures the strength of an engine in a straight line. Basically, it tells you how fast an engine can make a vehicle go. With a lawnmower, horsepower describes speed in blades and wheels. Power, meanwhile, describes the overall combination of forward movement, or speed, and rotational force, or strength. You can only know the total power of a mower if you know both the horsepower and torque. On their own, each of these constitutes a partial measure of a unit’s effectiveness.