Without a diagram of what you are talking about, it is hard to say. I suspect it is the dot product of the Force vector direction with a "d" vector that is the distance from the force application point to the point about which the torque being measured.
It would be easier to explain with a picture, but I can't draw one here.
In the picture shown here:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/labman1/torque.gif
d sin theta would be the distance l.
iN THE EQUATION FOR THE MAGNITUDE OF TORQUE, WHAT DOES THE QUANTITY d sin radians represent.
1 answer