Tank Tracks

[tanktastic43]

Hi, I hope one of you out there can help me.

Does anyone know the calculation for what the width, or 'surface area', of a tanks track should be, to stop it sinking into the ground?

I know it something to do with the weight of the vehicle and the psi caused.

I've tried comparing different vehicles to one another but not been able to get a satisfactory result.

Thanks in advance for any help. 

TT43.

[wikxie]

As a guess try dividing the weight by the area of the contact footprint. Calculate that by multiplying the width of the tracks (both of them) by the distance between the centres of the first and last road wheel.  imaginanry example - 20t tank, tracks 50cm wide, 5m centres. 50cm x 2 = 1m.  1m x 5m = 5 square m.  20t divided by 5sqm = 4t/sqm ie it has 4t per square m. This will work regardless what measurement system you use. Hope this helps.

[Weaver]

That's the correct way to measure the ground pressure, but of course, whether it sinks into the ground or not depends on the character of the ground, and that's complicated. It's not just a matter of "material X resists  ground pressure Y", it also depends on the hardness of the ground material. For instance, a tank may be able to drive across a muddy field at 10mph without sinking, because it clears each patch of ground faster than the ground flows around the tracks, but if you left it parked in the same field for an hour, it'd be sunk in and stuck.

[pyro-manic]

I may be completely wrong with this, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the ground pressure is ideally supposed to be lower than that of a man on foot....