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Traction: Super Singles or Duals?

mslogr

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I agree with the statement that you need to compare apples to apples. I log, my loads gross 84,000 lbs. I have tried super singles on my drive tires and hated them. The trucks got hung up all the time with the singles. Put the duals back on traction increased. Now thats with 120 lbs of air. But I wouldnt run anything but singles on my trailers, they do stand up better in soft ground. This is just what I've noticed in our situations. Its just my 2 cents.
 

cundupa

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I have 2 M817 dumps working on a site that is all clay. One has the stock NDT duels, the other singles. So far I don't see a difference, but, it has been fairly dry all summer. I was going to put singles on the 2nd truck after it worked long enough to pay for them, but so far I don't see the need. Once it gets wet that all may change. The truck with the NDT's drives way nicer down the road, but the singles look cooler. Remember, pretty is what pretty does.
What is better, a shotgun or a rifle?
 

Parabellum

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Ok, that diagram just had me eating crow about a conversation I had with a buddy in Afghanistan. Where can I find that picture in English? I'm assuming it is the translation of a US document in relation to a military vehicle we (read the US) sold to a NATO country? If this diagram deals with something else I get to take my foot out of my mouth.
I believe that picture is from Tatra manual. It depicts a half axle from an independent suspension and w/o any other link. also it originates in a rather round housing. the only system that I am aware corresponding to above description is Tatra and Pinzg which are design by father and respective son.
If am am wrong pls correct me.
 

SilentSpeedy

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I've been reading this entire post but have not been able to locate any info on what now exactly the best tire pressure is on a super single in different weather. I own my truck about 2 months now and we had a bit of ice on the back roads which really scare the bejeebes out of me. The truck handled really squirly with 70 lbs in front and 60 lbs in back. any advice? more less or park it for the winter.
 

kassim503

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Only one obvious hole in your theory that I could see - the "dig out under the flat tire (would only work if flat was an outside tire)" part.......ask any field service tire guy - the inside dual is the only one that ever fails.....
I had an outer go flat on a nice sunny day with unicorns flying through the fall sky. I say hey! That tire looks low but ill take care of it tommorow.... db cooper reminded me that theres a flat tire hanging out back there while he was passing out bills to pedestrians, but i say hey, ill take care of it tomorrow....

Then winter came and the inner went flat. :neutral:
 

oldMan99

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I have 2 M817 dumps working on a site that is all clay. One has the stock NDT duels, the other singles. So far I don't see a difference, but, it has been fairly dry all summer. I was going to put singles on the 2nd truck after it worked long enough to pay for them, but so far I don't see the need. Once it gets wet that all may change. The truck with the NDT's drives way nicer down the road, but the singles look cooler. Remember, pretty is what pretty does.
Suscribing to this thread. I am very interested in seeing what this man has to say when things get wet and messy.

What is better, a shotgun or a rifle?
Very good analogy. All depends on what your trying to get done and how you plan to go about it. However, it is far easier to carry both a SG and a rifle than it is to carry (and change) a full set of both SS and NDT's... LOL.....
 

glj

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Simple physics. As stated by others, the more tire surface area (SA), and less weight, the better, as a generalization. If your truck is sitting still with no power to wheels, it will make less of an impression the greater the SA and the lighter the load; i.e., less mass. Under power, of course, tread design becomes a factor, but it's influence will depend on the substrate upon which you sit. There are "just right" tire sizes that can be "dualed" that will stand taller in the mud than singles, all other things equal.
 

stumps

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Take the physics one step further:

If you put a pressure gauge on a tire while it is jacked up in the air, and it reads 50psi, when it is sitting on the ground with maximum load applied, it will read ..... 50psi.

Why is that? Because the tire deforms, increasing its "footprint" until the weight on the wheel divided by the area of the footprint equals the air pressure in the tire.

What does that mean? It means that in general, your tire puts exactly the same number of pounds per square inch pressure on the ground as is pumped into the tire.

When you are on soft ground, running high pressures will exceed the ability of the soil to support the load, and the tire will sink into the soft ground until it has enough surface area in contact with the soil (footprint) to float your load. (think lady's high heal pumps vs hiking boots in a muddy field...)

So, if you want to not sink as much in mud, lower the pressure in your tires as far as you can. That will increase your tire's footprint on the ground, and will keep you from having to waste your available tire traction climbing out of deep tire depressions..

By the way, every farmer knows that the secret to traction in soft ground is large, deep lugs, with ample space between the lugs to let them release the dirt. NDT tires are a compromise that works very well on soft ground... not so well on slick wet pavement.

-Chuck
 

glj

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Same Physics

What you are saying is kind of like the Archimedes Principle, which explains why even very heavy ships float and why floating icebergs do not raise the level of the sea, and why the sea level does not rise when the northern (non land mass) ice caps melt.

"An immersed object is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it actually displaces."

Yes, this explains the observation you cited, but doesn't change the physics principles I discussed.
 

Shrapnel

Just a Hoosier stuck out west!
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Makincold did very well through Georgia mud / clay with his single Michelin's aired down. 40 psi in the front and 30 psi for the rears. I think the rears could have been aired down a little more, but the "bulge" on the front tires was perfect. Crazy traction.

Airing down not only increases the traction/floatation efforts, it will make for a very plush ride as well. It's worth taking the time to air down if you're doing some serious trail/mud running.
 

Attachments

stumps

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What you are saying is kind of like the Archimedes Principle, which explains why even very heavy ships float and why floating icebergs do not raise the level of the sea, and why the sea level does not rise when the northern (non land mass) ice caps melt.

"An immersed object is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it actually displaces."

Yes, this explains the observation you cited, but doesn't change the physics principles I discussed.
Archimedes said that the upward buoyant force exerted on a body immersed in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid the body displaces. That means that if you submerged a tire in a liquid mud, there will be a buoyant force on the tire that is equal to the weight of a tire made out of the same liquid mud minus the weight of the tire. Clearly this is not what keeps a truck from sinking in mud. If you rely on the buoyancy of your tires to keep your truck from sinking in a very deep and liquid mud puddle you will soon be going blub, blub...

The only mud you can drive over without sinking up to your ears is mud that is more of a solid than a fluid.

I wasn't commenting at all on your earlier post. I was simply explaining why lowering the pressure in your tires makes things better when you are on soft ground: The pressure the tire exerts on the ground is about equal to the pressure of the air in the tire.

-Chuck
 

glj

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Never mind. I wasn't trying to contradict anything you were saying. I totally agree that if you try to drive your Deuce into the ocean, "It will sink." I could write the equation for the "sideline comment" I was making, in a frivolous way, but it would be a very multi-factorial equation that no one would understand. When we are talking about traction, buoyancy, mass, air pressure, tread pattern, etc., we are dealing with non-linear systems that are very difficult to express precisely in the absence of higher math/physics. That is why generalizations are good, and it is why I have no problem with the generalizations I've read so far.
 

glj

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Hey, stumps, you're right. Regarding your quote, below

"That means that if you submerged a tire in a liquid mud, there will be a buoyant force on the tire that is equal to the weight of a tire made out of the same liquid mud minus the weight of the tire."

my initial reaction was "What the heck, he doesn't understand Archimedes!" But a more careful read shows that you do indeed understand the guy and his thinking. I agree that it doesn't apply to the present discussion, witness the sinking Deuce.

I simply enjoy Archimedes discussions because of the incorrect frantic attribution of rising ocean levels to warming of the poles and the ice bergs. It doesn't work that way (for ways that you understand).

Again we are dealing with non-linear systems. The only way the ocean level will rise is if there is significant melting of land based ice such as Greenland and the Antarctic. There is more water in the Antarctic than all the world's oceans (or was it more than 70% of the water in the world's oceans?). So yes, if all that ice melted, parts of FL and New Orleans would really suffer. But only recently have the "thinkers" adjusted their estimates, because they failed to consider the number of very deep frozen lakes contained in the Antarctic continent. A sizable percentage of Antarctic water will be contained in the above sea level frozen lakes that are tens of thousands of feet deep. The geography under the ice is pretty well mapped now, and because there are some pretty tall mountains in the Antarctic much of the water will be retained in what will eventually become alpine lakes that contain monstrous lake trout. Great fishing.

Sorry for the diversion. I get that way sometimes.
 

glj

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Whoops

Whoops, stumps (respectfully, Chuck), not quite right on Archimedes (A). (Sorry to all, as this is an academic discussion and not related to our common interest in steel.) The "A Principle" (AP) applies only to liquids, and gasses. Mud is not a liquid. It is a "suspension." A suspension is composed of solid particles dispersed in a liquid. Thus, the density of the liquid supporting the suspension may be constantly changing, and there will be lack of uniformity in intermolecular forces of the supporting liquid. This will cause failure of the AP.

It might be useful to illustrate as follows: My wife asked me "What are you talking about, when you say that a melting ice berg will not raise ocean levels?" I replied "Why do you think that the volume of ice in the ice cube tray is greater than the volume of water from which it derived?" And, "Why do you think that the level of liquid in your drink that contains ice cubes does not change when the cubes melt?" One has to understand that while the AP is involved here, so is the concept of intermolecular forces. The reason that frozen water has greater volume than liquid water is the presence of hydrogen bonding in water. Hydrogen bonding is a weak bonding mechanism, but these bonds become very "organized" when water freezes, the affect being that the volume of the ice is greater than the liquid from which it came. This is why melting ice bergs don't raise ocean levels.

But the AP as it relates to ice bergs deals with only the submerged (less dense, due to increased intermolecular distances) ice. But it still works, just as the steel hull of a ship is buoyed up by the water it displaces, even though there is a great ship suprastructure, with it's mass, above the waterline. The weight of the entire ship is supported because of the decreased "density" of volume above water line, just as the weight of an iceberg (where most of the volume is above water line) is supported by the AP.

So density is clearly important. The liquid in mud is less dense because it is a suspension. Additional forces are thereby involved in mud, and the AP principle doesn't seem to apply to mud or other suspensions.

But not to worry. This corrects my thinking more than yours. In your case, it explains why the denser the mud the less you will sink, all other variables constant. In my case it explains why my Deuce will sink when driven into the ocean, while your weasel might not.

It's still possible I'm wrong. Many years since I've done computational chemistry and physics. Old now.

Oh! One more way deflating tires is helpful. Driving the Alaska (Alcan) Hwy, with its frost heaves. Just got back from Inuvik, Northwest Territories. AK Hwy to Whitehorse, Yukon, north to Dempster Hwy, north on Dempster (450 mi dirt, one way), to NWT and Beufort Sea. Farthest north you can go in Canada until it freezes. One way up Alcan I let 15 to 20 psi out and the
Deuce became much more comfortable. 8,000 miles.

Gary
 

stumps

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Hi Gary,

There are all sorts of mud.

Liquid mud, as I imagined it, is mud that is more like room temperature Hershey's chocolate syrup... mud that you could pour from a pitcher.

Mud that is like chocolate milk is clearly liquid in behavior. Mud that is like catsup, which is thixotropic, can behave like either a liquid or a solid depending on whether it is being actively stirred. Mud that is like mortar, behaves mostly like a solid, which is why a brick doesn't squish it all out of the joint. The characteristics of Archimedes principle clearly work just fine for chocolate milk mud, pretty well for stirred thixotropic mud, and not much for mortar mud.

I don't think my explanation of mud types helps the discussion much, though... except to say that most probably find it... as clear as mud.

-Chuck
 
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