Its no secret that lighter vehicles do better in the snow, sand, etc. the heavy pigs like me can compensate for this by running bigger tires and airing down. But how to figure out what you really need to do to get a more equal footing?
I wonder if you could just pull a relational shortcut?
Say...(the weights are tire stuff is just guesses)
The Sammy weighs 2,500 pounds and the tire contact area is 20 square inches. So with four tires we have 31.25 pounds on each square inch of surface area.
(2,500 pounds / 20 square inches)/ 4 tires = 31.25 pounds per inch
I guess the idea would be to try to match the square inch weight load.
So, on a 5,500 pound Blazer....
(5,500 pounds)/(31.25 pounds per inch * 4 tires)= 44 square inches per tire.
So then.....
(44/31.25) - 1 = .408 or 41% increase needed in tire area.
So for fun. Lets say that a 31" tire at full pressure gives you the 31.25 inches of tire contact. 31" * 1.41 is about a 44" tire.
Now this does not include air pressure or lug style or a ton of other things like maybe just airing down a 36" tire can get you what you need.
But it might be safe to say that you would need 40% more tire contact to get the same amount of flotation on the snow.
What do you think?
I wonder if you could just pull a relational shortcut?
Say...(the weights are tire stuff is just guesses)
The Sammy weighs 2,500 pounds and the tire contact area is 20 square inches. So with four tires we have 31.25 pounds on each square inch of surface area.
(2,500 pounds / 20 square inches)/ 4 tires = 31.25 pounds per inch
I guess the idea would be to try to match the square inch weight load.
So, on a 5,500 pound Blazer....
(5,500 pounds)/(31.25 pounds per inch * 4 tires)= 44 square inches per tire.
So then.....
(44/31.25) - 1 = .408 or 41% increase needed in tire area.
So for fun. Lets say that a 31" tire at full pressure gives you the 31.25 inches of tire contact. 31" * 1.41 is about a 44" tire.
Now this does not include air pressure or lug style or a ton of other things like maybe just airing down a 36" tire can get you what you need.
But it might be safe to say that you would need 40% more tire contact to get the same amount of flotation on the snow.
What do you think?