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Ground pressure
 
 
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Ground pressure is the pressure
Pressure

Pressure is the force per unit area applied to an object in a direction surface normal to the surface. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure....
 exerted on the ground by the tires or tracks
Caterpillar track

File:279-7.jpgContinuous tracks are large tracks used on the so-called caterpillar tanks, engineering vehicle and certain other off-road vehicles....
 of a motorized vehicle, and is one measure of its potential mobility, especially over soft ground. Ground pressure can be measured in (for example) pounds per square inch
Pounds per square inch

The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units....
 (PSI) or kilopascals (kPa). Ground pressure can be calculated with the formula (loaded weight divided by ground contact area) The ground pressure of motorized vehicles is often compared to the ground pressure of a human foot
Foot

The foot is an anatomical structure found in many animals. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws or nails....
, which can be 9 - 12 PSI while walking or as much as 1,920 PSI for a person in spike heels.

Increasing the size of the contact area on the ground (the footprint) in relation to the weight decreases the ground pressure.






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Encyclopedia


Ground pressure is the pressure
Pressure

Pressure is the force per unit area applied to an object in a direction surface normal to the surface. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure....
 exerted on the ground by the tires or tracks
Caterpillar track

File:279-7.jpgContinuous tracks are large tracks used on the so-called caterpillar tanks, engineering vehicle and certain other off-road vehicles....
 of a motorized vehicle, and is one measure of its potential mobility, especially over soft ground. Ground pressure can be measured in (for example) pounds per square inch
Pounds per square inch

The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units....
 (PSI) or kilopascals (kPa). Ground pressure can be calculated with the formula (loaded weight divided by ground contact area) The ground pressure of motorized vehicles is often compared to the ground pressure of a human foot
Foot

The foot is an anatomical structure found in many animals. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws or nails....
, which can be 9 - 12 PSI while walking or as much as 1,920 PSI for a person in spike heels.

Increasing the size of the contact area on the ground (the footprint) in relation to the weight decreases the ground pressure. Ground pressure of 2 PSI or less is recommended for fragile ecosystems like marshes. Decreasing the ground pressure increases the flotation, allowing easier passage of the body over soft terrain. This is often observed in activities like snowshoeing
Snowshoe

Snowshoes, sometimes colloquially referred to as webs, are footwear for walking over snow. Snowshoes work by distributing the weight of the person over a larger area so that the person's foot doesn't sink completely into the snow, a quality called "flotation"....
.

Example Ground Pressures

All example are approximate, and will vary based on conditions

Hovercraft: 0.1 psi

Human on Snowshoe
Snowshoe

Snowshoes, sometimes colloquially referred to as webs, are footwear for walking over snow. Snowshoes work by distributing the weight of the person over a larger area so that the person's foot doesn't sink completely into the snow, a quality called "flotation"....
s: 0.5 psi
Pounds per square inch

The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units....


Rubber-tracked ATV
All-terrain vehicle

An all-terrain vehicle is defined by the American National Standards Institute as a vehicle that travels on low pressure tires, with a seat that is straddled by the operator, along with handlebars for steering control....
: 0.75 psi

Diedrich D-50 - T2 Drilling rig: 3.8 psi

Human
Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
 Male (1.8 metre tall, medium build): 8 psi

M1 Abrams
M1 Abrams

The M1 Abrams is a Tank classification#Main battle tank produced in the United States. The M1 is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff of the United States Army and Commander of US military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972....
 tank: 15 psi

1993 Toyota 4Runner
Toyota 4Runner

The Toyota 4Runner, is an SUV manufactured by Toyota and sold throughout the world from 1984 to the present. The original 4Runner was a compact SUV and a little more than a Toyota pickup truck with a fiberglass shell over the bed, but the model has since undergone significant independent development into a mid-size SUV....
 / Hilux Surf: 25 psi

Adult horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
 (1250 lb
Pound (mass)

The pound or pound-mass is a Units of measurement of massused in the Imperial unit, United States customary units and other systems of measurement....
): 25 psi

Passenger car: 30 psi

Wheeled ATV: 35 psi

Mountain bicycle
Bicycle

The bicycle, bike, or cycle is a pedal-driven, human-powered transport with two bicycle wheel attached to a bicycle frame, one behind the other....
: 40 psi

Racing bicycle: 90 psi

Note pressures for Man and Horse are for standing still. A walking human will exert more than double its standing pressure. A galloping horse will exert up to 500 psi

Related Reading

  • Theory of Ground Vehicles