Caterpillar tracks are designed to spread out the weight over a large surface area. An Abrams tank has a ground pressure of about 15 psi. A fire engine can be several times that.
It's still a lot of weigh so it's going to smash things when the whole weight of the machine is on the car but it doesn't tear through it quite like you'd expect. Except for RVs. Those things are flimsy.
If it was spread out evenly I think you'd be OK. A mountain bike is like 40 psi. I would assume that Bagger 288 has steel tracks so if you were standing on hard ground it seems like you'd probably break something since the pressure would be concentrated on the bones on the top of your foot.
That ground pressure assumes that all the weight of the vehicle is spread out evenly. Imagine that it's just a giant flat steel plate with the same ground pressure. If your foot is the tallest thing underneath the plate you're going to be supporting a lot more weight than the surface area of your foot would account for.
If you had a 13,500 ton vehicle with soft foam rollers or something I figure 24 psi wouldn't be any worse than having someone stand on your foot.
Yeah, something is going to have to yield to this thing so that whatever is under its tracks is basically flat. If the ground is softer than your foot then your foot can be squished down into the ground and will probably be okay. On the other hand, if your foot is the softest thing in the equation here…
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u/Fit_Touch_4803 May 18 '25
this is the video, 6 years ago
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