Thread: Harness Bar
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Old 04-30-2006, 02:13 AM   #5
KetteringTi
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I was referring more to a rollover on public roads as opposed to a racetrack.

95% of all rollovers are caused by "tripping", which just means that the tires hit something or quickly transition between surface mu's while sliding sideways. One reason for the Ford Explorer debacle is that Ford was actually underinflating the tires on the Explorer to make the ride softer. As a result, the tires had more lateral capability (the less lat. g's the tires can pull the better when it comes to rollovers) due to the footprint being much larger, and because of the huge increase in friction caused by an underinflated tire, the rubber simply delaminated and "tread separation" ensued. The main cause however was BAD DRIVERS.

C&D ran a test where they rigged up an Explorer with a remote inflation/deflation system and drove it down a drag strip and purged all the tire pressure in one tire. They did it at all different speeds, and at 80mph, the driver let go of the wheel during the blow out with very anticlimactic results. Hmm... Wonder what all those Explorer drivers were thinking???

Boy I went on an extremely OT tangent!

Just a little tidbit about rollovers I picked up in my engineering days.
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