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What Do You Multiply to Get the Net Torque?

Figuring out net torque requires you to multiply some very specific values. Find out what you need to multiply to get the net torque with help from an experienced research scientist in this free video clip.

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Video Transcript

Hello, my name is Harold Yorke. I'm a research scientist in Pasadena, California, and I will be answering the question what do you multiply to get the net torque. People who work on cars sometimes have to tighten their bolts or their nuts to a certain specified foot pounds. This is a torque and the way you calculate this is you have a wrench of length R and you apply a certain amount of force in pounds F and the torque is then N is the product of R times F. And that's given in foot pounds. In vector notation you would actually take the cross product of the radial vector with the force vector to give you the torque vector. What this means is that you can apply more torque if you have a longer wrench using the same amount of force or you could have less torque if you put the same force on a shorter part of the wrench. So, the answer is you multiply the distance times the force to get your net torque. Thank you.