My sister recently got married and her husband is studying to become a mechanical engineer. He’s a car lover, and has dreamed of designing faster engines and utilizing different “green” fuel sources since he was a kid. Over the last few years, as we have gotten to know each other, I have learned a vast deal about how cars and related vehicles work. One of the major considerations in the health of any vehicle, whether it is in the automotive, aviation or aerospace industry, is the torque.

Torque transducers are devices used to measure the torque within any mechanical system that utilizes an engine, which means they are used for certain industrial machines as well as the manufacturing of vehicles. Measuring the torque, as my brother-in-law explained, is complicated to do and vital to ensuring that a machine will work properly. In short, the torque is basically the energy used for the movement of one part to cause the movement of another. Within a vehicle such as an airplane, a piece of farming equipment like a tractor or a residentially owned car, the energy from the engine that must be translated to cause the proper motion in the wheels is necessary for the vehicles to do what they were meant to do. Measuring this torque, this motion, is how precision driving, which is necessary for all the machines mentioned above and more, is possible.

The measurement of torque, which is done by this pressure transducer, is necessary but also must be done without interfering with how the machine system works. That means the torque transducer has to do its job without messing up the job of the torque. It is like a yearly check-up at the doctor for an engine, except that it is constantly attached to the vehicle and does its check-up on a daily basis instead of a yearly basis.