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Questions tagged [wheels]

87 questions
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What is the purpose of these “partially filled in” locomotive wheels?

I recently visited a railway museum with a lot of Soviet-era locomotives. The picture below shows the wheels on a locomotive from the 1930s or 1940s. Some of the wheels are thicker on one side (as it it were a partially filled cup). What is the…
adam.baker
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Why do car wheels have holes?

If you have a look at the car's wheels, you'll notice that they have holes which can be of different forms (mostly circular or rectangular). Why do they have such holes? Doesn't that reduce the stiffness of the wheels?
PaulD
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Why do cars turn by turning the front wheel?

Why do we design cars to turn by turning the front wheel? Wouldn't it better to keep all wheels straight and turn by rotating the wheels on one side of a car more then the wheels on the opposite side of the car, like tank tracks do? That way you can…
Mustafa
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Is a chair with N+1 wheels ever less stable than a chair with N wheels?

My workplace has a policy to provide standing desks upon request, but no policy to provide chairs of matching height. (I work for the government...) We can buy our own, or build our own. However they added a stipulation that the chairs must be…
Dennis
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RC car steering mechanism type

I need to figure out what type of steering does this 1:10 Himoto Buggy Zmoto Z-3 RC car have in order to be able to calculate the steering angle from servo position for a robotics project. Is it the same mechanism as Rack-And-Pinion steering? I…
Kozuch
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How can I calculate the power and torque required for the motor on a wheeled robot/vehicle?

How can I calculate the power and torque required for the motor on a wheeled robot or vehicle if a particular acceleration or movement up an incline is required?
DKNguyen
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Why do cars have beveled tires?

If you look at a tire from the rear, you'll notice that the tire isn't quite a cylinder. It has edges that are slightly beveled. Sometimes this effect is clearly apparent, but other times, as in many car tires, it's hard to see. I can understand the…
HDE 226868
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Why caster angle causes wheels to self-center?

I have no background in Mechanical Engineering. It's intuitive to use an analogy as this guy demonstrated here @3:48 where he used caster wheels you would see in office chairs where the contact point is ahead of the wheel in relation to the…
supertonsky
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Rover Wheels: Convex or Flat?

I was comparing the wheels of the Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover and noticed that the latter had a very flat cylindrical design as compared to the former. This got me thinking about which wheel profile was sturdier. That got me thinking…
William R. Ebenezer
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Why is a cart with swiveling casters in front stable, but not if the swiveling casters are in back?

Consider a four-wheeled cart that has swiveling casters for the two front wheels, and has wheels that don't swivel in back. For example, a common shopping cart, or trolley if you prefer. If such a cart is pushed and let go, it will continue to…
rclocher3
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What makes scooters unstable at high speeds?

Scooters and skateboards are obviously meant for slower speeds, below 5 MPH. Typically if you go faster than that, it becomes harder and harder to control the scooter, and you will fall off. An example of this is the speed wobble, examples easily…
user16388
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Reason of Using exactly 5 Wheel Studs per Wheel

So today when I was taking a taxi and looked at the vehicles, I observed that the majority of the light vehicles (i.e. 16-person minibus/ 4-6 person cars) use 5 (or less frequently, 6) wheels studs for each wheel. Intuitively, 6 evenly distributed…
Mythomorphic
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Wheel rolling resistance

I think that some of you know what is rolling resistance. It is force that works in opposite direction to roll and is caused due to deformation of tire. It also affects car wheels. There is one problem with it. I have found 2 equations…
Adrians Netlis
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What mechanism can make a wheel turn in discrete steps?

I want to make a wheel that behaves pretty much like a mouse wheel does — when you rotate it with your finger and release, it rotates back or forward by itself to match a nearest discrete position. What are the common ways to do so?
Vadym Borodin
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Surprisingly Low Efficiency of Compound Machine [Project Help]

I'm working on a school project that requires us to build a compound machine with a mechanical advantage of 9. It should be able to lift a 10oz soup can three or more inches by using the weight of fifteen pennies. My machine consists of an inclined…
Mister_Maybe
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