|
|
Post by wvengineer on Dec 20, 2019 14:20:07 GMT
We had an ice storm a week ago that I had to drive in due to a family emergency. While on the road, we hit ice on roads that were not yet treated. I was behind a semi* and once he realized there was ice, he pulled to the shoulder where you could use the gravel that normally accumulates on the side of the road to give himself traction. It actually works very well. By being able to keep one side of the car with good traction, you can keep the whole thing under control. I drove like that for several miles until I hit the state line and MD had treated their roads. Talking to coworkers about this, someone mentioned the rumble strips that they cut into the road to make a awful racket int he car to alert drivers when they are drifting off the road. PA even cuts them down the center lines of the road for additional signaling. This coworker suggested using those to give traction. The idea being that the uneven road service would give the tire something to grip like the gravel on the shoulder. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_stripIs this a sound idea? If you have to be on the road, can rumble strips give you traction in an emergency? If so, what does it take for them to loose their effectiveness? * watching him slide swideways is enough to freak anyone out. |
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on Dec 20, 2019 14:44:21 GMT
We had an ice storm a week ago that I had to drive in due to a family emergency. While on the road, we hit ice on roads that were not yet treated. I was behind a semi* and once he realized there was ice, he pulled to the shoulder where you could use the gravel that normally accumulates on the side of the road to give himself traction. It actually works very well. By being able to keep one side of the car with good traction, you can keep the whole thing under control. I drove like that for several miles until I hit the state line and MD had treated their roads. Talking to coworkers about this, someone mentioned the rumble strips that they cut into the road to make a awful racket int he car to alert drivers when they are drifting off the road. PA even cuts them down the center lines of the road for additional signaling. This coworker suggested using those to give traction. The idea being that the uneven road service would give the tire something to grip like the gravel on the shoulder. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_stripIs this a sound idea? If you have to be on the road, can rumble strips give you traction in an emergency? If so, what does it take for them to loose their effectiveness? * watching him slide swideways is enough to freak anyone out. I would say that it is definitely a “sound“ idea. Seriously though, there is nothing more stressful than driving on ice. Anything that may help increase traction would be beneficial. That said, I think the rumble strip idea may depend on just how heavy the ice is. It may help in moderate icing conditions, but in extremely heavy icing it may actually tend to throw the car out of control. An interesting traction control method that diesel locomotives use is sand ejection nozzles in front of the drive wheels. If the engine is losing traction, sand is ejected out of the nozzles to help the wheels maintain traction. I wonder if something like this may not be beneficial for automobiles. It wouldn’t eject sand all the time, but only if the traction control system detected the wheels slipping. |
|
|
|
Post by wvengineer on Dec 20, 2019 15:48:05 GMT
Locomotive sanding has been around for well over a hundred years. The 1909 Baldwin that I used to work with at the scenic railroad had a sanding system. In addition top the engineer sanding the tracks, it would also sand automatically when there was a sudden loss of brake line air pressure. If you are doing a brake check and bleed it too fast, then it will trip the brakes, causing them to lock and it to sand. This will annoy the engineer who has to reset and re-pressurize the brakes. Neat design considering it is purely mechanical. No electronics of any kind. It all runs on air pressure.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Dec 20, 2019 15:51:14 GMT
I'm sure I've seen vehicles with sand nozzles at the drive wheels - auto chains don't have to be refilled, though.  as for the rumble strip - the biggest issue is that it is under the snow instead of on top of it. the most usual case I would expect is that it would just fill up and become smooth. however, in some cases, the traffic path becomes beaten and polished, and a fresh surface provides better traction. - and sometimes it is the opposite. a lot of driving on frozen surfaces is figuring out what the characteristics of the various tracks are and choosing the best one. addendum, I found the right search string to bring the sander up on google. www.schoolbusfleet.com/article/611961/is-your-fleet-ready-for-winter |
|
