Do we need suspension?

[munks]

Dont know if this was allready posted here, if it was, i appologise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LFmWd2J ... re=related

Nice, especially the quick banter near the end.

[bill shoe]

For what its worth, a wooden wheel will generate force and slip but the deformation will be on the micron scale so the slip angle will be barley noticable.

Tim

Paul Haney liked to give a talk where he said the pnuematic tire was the invention that allowed modern humans to live and work more than a few hundred yards away from train tracks. I think this is not an exageration.

Wooden or steel wheels can't develop significant lateral force due to the almost non-existent deformation you mention. Therefore they can't go around corners or even be controlled in a straight line faster than walking speed. The work-around for this difficulty before pneumatic tires was called "train tracks".

[gold333]

Fwiw, in the late 80's early 90's the in thing amongst engineers was to ride the cars on the bump stops almost constantly. Hence the very shaky and springy onboard rides we see from that era. And that was with the extra wide tires too.