How would putting a blanket over a rope or chain under tension (i.e. pulling a truck out of sand/mud) work to reduce the risk of it flying out and hurting someone should it snap?

Question

Awhile back I helped pull a couple of guys who’d gotten their truck stuck in the sand out using a couple of heavy cargo straps that I had in my truck.

One of the guys put a blanket over the straps and said it would dissipate the energy should the straps snap. It sounded plausible to me, but curious if it’s a legit claim.

In: 72

Answer 1

Tension works in weird ways. Cloth can be really good at spreading any built up tension as the energy needed to move the cloth any considerable distance ends up being quite high.

There’s a pretty cool experiment you can do to show the power of how a light item will disperse energy. Find a wooden or plastic ruler and lean it over the edge of a table. On top of the ruler on the table, place a piece of paper. Then try to catapult that piece of paper by swiping down on the ruler over the edge of the table.

That piece of paper is so good at dispersing the energy of your hand on the ruler that it’ll actually snap the ruler in half. That’s, effectively, how the blanket would work on the strap.