Requesting Physists Help With Friction

[Woody1458]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

Dragster tires get incredibly hot. If they were small and skiny they would explode or catch fire. Bigger tires can dissipate heat and survive longer.

Thanks I did not realize. However still there are other situations that represent using a larger surface area for more traction.

http://www.ifirobotics.com/robot-traction-wheels.shtml

Inside FIRST robotics it self, IFI sells traction wheels and advertises the wider ones to have more traction. Im also noticing that all my surface area example are wheels, maybe wheels have special friction properties that include surface area, just not that I remember.

[Vikesrock]

As I understand it this years game should behave close to the ideal model of friction we are all familiar with. Both the floor (with the exception of the carpet) and the wheels are quite hard so the ideal model should be pretty accurate.

Between the soft rubber traction wheels and their patterned tread and the carpet both surfaces are fairly soft and have surfaces that can "grip" each other and not directly slide across each other. This is the source of the non-idealities that draw surface area into play. An extreme example of these "grip" interactions would be velcro.

[Woody1458]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

As I understand it this years game should behave close to the ideal model of friction we are all familiar with. Both the floor (with the exception of the carpet) and the wheels are quite hard so the ideal model should be pretty accurate.

Between the soft rubber traction wheels and their patterned tread and the carpet both surfaces are fairly soft and have surfaces that can "grip" each other and not directly slide across each other. This is the source of the non-idealities that draw surface area into play. An extreme example of these "grip" interactions would be velcro.

Thanks for this well explained..... explanation. The velcro example really helped.

[Aren_Hill]

On carpet using roughtop surface texture, an interlock actually happens between the two throwing off the whole "surface area has no effect on static friction" deal. this is why wider wheels usually pushed better. But this year its a flat profile wheel, and a slightly bumpy playing field which makes the traditional equations more relavant.