[ars]

The ground pressure of a human wearing studded shoes is an order of magnitude or more higher than the ground pressure of a car.

The ground pressure of a car is exactly equal to the PSI that you inflate the tire.

Take the weight of a human and divide by the surface area of of a started shoe you will find a significantly higher number.

[gambiting]

>>The ground pressure of a car is exactly equal to the PSI that you inflate the tire

Wait, what? So if the tire is flat, the car exerts no pressure on the ground? :-P

[ars]

I know you are joking but just to answer the question anyway, if the tires are completely flat then they are not supporting the car and you can't use them for measurement.

If the tires are partially flat then they are supporting the car and the PSI is correct and you'll notice the tire spreads out wider on the road so the ground force is lower because it's spread out over a larger area.

Technically you have to also include the springiness of the sidewall in the measurement not just the PSI of the air.

[gambiting]

>>if the tires are completely flat then they are not supporting the car and you can't use them for measurement.

Run-flat tires are a thing though - you can drive on them even with no internal pressure, there can be a gaping hole in it and you can still drive on them. So what's the pressure the car exerts on the road when driving then?

[samatman]

A hint: the area of the tyre in contact with the road is in square meters, and the mass is in kilograms.

You'll find that, if you multiply the force of gravity by the mass, and divide by square meters, you'll have Pascals.

And there's your answer.

[ars]

That's where the "springiness of the sidewall" I mentioned comes in.

Normally (with inflated tires) it doesn't play much part. But with flat tires it can come to dominate.

[mirimir]

I've done that. They catch fire, after a while.

[chillwaves]

I can understand the car part (pounds per square inch) but why would a person's feet have more than 35 psi? If I have something like 60 (30 per) square inches of feet, and I weigh 180lbs, would that be 3 psi for my feet? Even if only parts of my feet were striking the ground at a time, how would that be more than a car?

[ars]

High heels. Also in this specific case we are talking about metal spiked ice shoes.

[chillwaves]

Thanks, that makes it very clear.

All your posts are helpful.

For example, I never before considered the implications of tire PSI.