The tires are the most important part of the car
because without them the car will not go anywhere. Even with a
very
powerful engine working as hard as possible that car is not going to
budge an
inch, but a car with tires and no engine will be able to move whether
somebody
is pushing it or whether its rolling down a hill. Tires come in
many
different sizes and types allowing one to choose from a variety to meet
their
needs. For instance a studded tire would be the best choice for
the
winter, racing slicks for a race car, weather alls for the areas with
unpredictable weather and all terrain tires for off roaders. With
this
info in mind it brings up the need of friction so that the tire might
be able
to grip on any surface thrown at it. With this information we can
bring
up the equation of friction .
F=(Mu)N
tire
images http://www.tirerack.com/indexA.jsp
F is the friction calculated by two surfaces, Mu is the coefficient of
friction, and N is the normal force acting on the object, in which this
case is
the tires of a vehicle. Mu is calculated by the roughness of the
two
surfaces in contact with each other and the rougher the surfaces are
the higher
this number will become. For instance if one had racing slicks on
a road
of ice Mu would be very small due to the fact theres two smooth
surfaces making
contact making it hard for the tires to grip anything at all. But
if those slicks were on dry pavement and the driver spun the tires a
few times to melt the rubber, Mu would increase dramatically causing
the friction to increase also.
The normal force is
directly related to the weight of the tire and the car sitting on it.
Technically if one was to increase the wieght of the tire the friction
would increase allowing the tire more traction to help move the car
along. This is why people with two wheel drive trucks put
sandbags or anything heavy in the beds of their trucks.
Unfortunetly this doesn't increase the traction to all four wheels,
only the back two which will allow the driver to accelerate faster than
usual when on ice and snow.
| Home Page |
Conservation of Energy | Horse Power |
F=Ma |
Bibliography |