On Sat, 9 Sep 1995, Daniel Levitin wrote:
> Just a guess here - I'm no expert - but I didn't think that there is a
> strict 1:1 relation between engine rpms and vehicle speed. I'm just going
> on intuition here, but it seems that if you're going up a steep hill, the
> amount of torque needed to overcome the gravity of the hill is going to be
> greater than if you are on a flat stretch of road. The greater torque
> will require greater engine rpms to achieve the same speed. It would be
Yes and no. In a standard transmission car with a good clutch, there's
no component that can slip and let the engine speed increase when you
start up a hill. As long as you keep the car in the same gear, there
will be a single relation between engine rpm and road speed. You
increase the gas going to the engine to increase power. If that doesn't
suffice, then you shift to a lower gear, and at that point you are right,
you are now using more rpm to achieve the same speed.
> easy to try an empirical experiment: find a hill near your house and
> start to climb the hill with the car maintaining a constant rpm and see
> if the vehicle's speed slows down.
>
>
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons(at)northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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