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In physics, power is the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit time. In the International System of Units, the unit of power is the watt, equal to one joule per second. In older works, power is sometimes called activity. Power is a scalar quantity. Power is related to other quantities; for example, the power involved in moving a ground vehicle is the product of the traction force on the wheels and the velocity of the vehicle. The output power of a motor is the product of the torque that the motor generates and the angular velocity of its output shaft. Likewise, the power dissipated in an electrical element of a circuit is the product of the current flowing through the element and of the voltage across the element.
Power is the rate with respect to time at which work is done; it is the time derivative of work:
If a constant force F is applied throughout a distance x, the work done is defined as
If instead the force is variable over a three-dimensional curve C, then the work is expressed in terms of the line integral:
From the fundamental theorem of calculus, we know that
The dimension of power is energy divided by time. In the International System of Units (SI), the unit of power is the watt (W), which is equal to one joule per second. Other common and traditional measures are horsepower (hp), comparing to the power of a horse; one mechanical horsepower equals about 745.7 watts. Other units of power include ergs per second (erg/s), foot-pounds per minute, dBm, a logarithmic measure relative to a reference of 1 milliwatt, calories per hour, BTU per hour (BTU/h), and tons of refrigeration.
As a simple example, burning one kilogram of coal releases much more energy than detonating a kilogram of TNT,[1] but because the TNT reaction releases energy much more quickly, it delivers far more power than the coal. If ΔW is the amount of work performed during a period of time of duration Δt, the average power Pavg over that period is given by the formula:
The instantaneous power is then the limiting value of the average power as the time interval Δt approaches zero.
In the case of constant power P, the amount of work performed during a period of duration t is given by:
In the context of energy conversion, it is more customary to use the symbol E rather than W.
Power in mechanical systems is the combination of forces and movement. In particular, power is the product of a force on an object and the object's velocity, or the product of a torque on a shaft and the shaft's angular velocity.
Mechanical power is also described as the time derivative of work. In mechanics, the work done by a force F on an object that travels along a curve C is given by the line integral:
If the force F is derivable from a potential (conservative), then applying the gradient theorem (and remembering that force is the negative of the gradient of the potential energy) yields:
The power at any point along the curve C is the time derivative:
In one dimension, this can be simplified to:
In rotational systems, power is the product of the torque τ and angular velocity ω,
In fluid power systems such as hydraulic actuators, power is given by
If a mechanical system has no losses, then the input power must equal the output power. This provides a simple formula for the mechanical advantage of the system.
Let the input power to a device be a force FA acting on a point that moves with velocity vA and the output power be a force FB acts on a point that moves with velocity vB. If there are no losses in the system, then
The similar relationship is obtained for rotating systems, where TA and ωA are the torque and angular velocity of the input and TB and ωB are the torque and angular velocity of the output. If there are no losses in the system, then
These relations are important because they define the maximum performance of a device in terms of velocity ratios determined by its physical dimensions. See for example gear ratios.
The instantaneous electrical power P delivered to a component is given by
If the component is a resistor with time-invariant voltage to current ratio, then:
In the case of a periodic signal
The peak power is not always readily measurable, however, and the measurement of the average power
One may define the pulse length
Power is related to intensity at a radius