On Nov 11, 2014, at 5:51 PM, Michael Ross via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
> It is pretty clear if you drive hard on over > inflated tires that you have far less traction. Another way to look at it: the ultimate in tire "inflation" would be a solid steel rim on the road. And, indeed, locomotives have a fraction of the rolling resistance that vehicles with tires do. However, it's also pretty obvious that traction sucks with wheels like that. It's trivial for a locomotive to do a "burnout" by spinning the wheels at low speeds; we've all seen the iconic films of it happening with classic steam / coal boiler trains. But, with something with pneumatic tires, you've got to both lock the unpowered wheels <i>and</i> have a good deal of power to the powered wheels to achieve the same effect. Or, contrast it with top fuel dragsters whose low-pressure tires are designed to radically deform and ripple so as to lay down maximum amounts of rubber to transfer as much power as possible from the drivetrain through the tires to the road. Ideal, of course, would be some sort of magic faery dust technology that could instantly change tire inflation to suit conditions, from low pressure and squishy when accelerating (in any vector, as a physicist would put it) to high pressure and stiff when cruising. But don't hold your breath.... Cheers, b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20141111/7d0ddce0/attachment.pgp> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
