I just watched a video of 4 trucks connected together pulling a huge load. Then there were 3 more trucks connected to each other and the load pushing.
How do the 7 trucks synchronize so that they work together as one unit? Could one truck could have a negative effect on all the other trucks if it went slower?
In: 1
Only if it contributes less torque than it would take for it to roll at the speed the load is going. Imagine the following:
Let’s say the load is rolling at 10mph, and any one of the 7 trucks involved would require 10% throttle to roll at 10mph on its own. But the load is heavy, so it takes 7 trucks 40% throttle input to roll the load at those same 10mph. If one of the 7 trucks input 10% throttle instead, they wouldn’t be contributing to pushing the load, but they wouldn’t be making it worse. 6 trucks at 40% would not be better than 6@40% + 1@10%. If one of them was to, however, let off the throttle entirely, now the other six would have to push the idling truck around to, so 6@40% + 1@0% would be worse than 6@40% + 1@10%. Having said all of that, 6@40% + 1@10% would not result in the load rolling at 10mph, because we already established you need 7@40% to get that.
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