Quote:
Originally posted by Matt Leese
Traction has (almost) nothing to do with surface area. Traction is directly proportional to the normal force of an object (F=uN). While your treads probably had a high u (mu), the contact area did not increase your traction.
I do say almost nothing to do with surface area because traction will increase in cases where you actually have the one object mesh with the other (think of the brushes that were used effectively by some teams this year). In those cases, area coverage does matter. In most cases, it has little to do with the traction of a given robot.
Yes, the whole idea is counter-intuitive. This is, however, how it works. Surface area does make a difference for turning however. But it's fairly unrelated to the topic at hand.
Matt
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Matt, the type of belting material we used lends itself as a good example of why is *almost* doesn't matter. It does have a texture that meshes well with the carpet. So, in our case, the large surface area became important because it decreased the potential for slipping of the belts.
You saw it, didn't you?
Anyway, that's why we decided to go with such a large area of belting. While our gearing nor our N*mu were amazing, I think that our belts helped us harness the available torque and transfer it to the carpet better than many other teams
