Draft horse pulls……… ?
May 21st, 2008 | by drafthorse |
~nobody~ *{JPA}* asked:
I was searching pictures tonight, and not really thinking of anything much. . . then I came across pictures of draft horse pulls (if youve never seen one just google it).
I was searching pictures tonight, and not really thinking of anything much. . . then I came across pictures of draft horse pulls (if youve never seen one just google it).
Anyway, my question is, how much power/force is put on the horse’s muscles/bones/body from the pulling? Is there an mathmatical way to figure it out?
ARIEL
3 Responses to “Draft horse pulls……… ?”
By hello on May 22, 2008 | Reply
i think an average draft can pull 2000 lbs per square foot of body mass.
By Greg B on May 24, 2008 | Reply
I thought the draft horse pulls were measured with a dynomometer. Is that not true? If so, the reading from the dynomometer will tell you.
By galloppal on May 28, 2008 | Reply
Well, many of my books are still somewhere in boxes, and I am too tired to google this. Even if you do google it, you may find it is more complicated than you care to deal with. But, I can tell you that there are formulae for figuring the forces. Traction is the term used for force or pull. In medicine, we studied traction and counter traction as it applied to the management of muscle spasms in bone healing. The traction was created using weights that typically were suspended with ropes that fed over pulleys. The counter-traction was mostly created by the patent’s own body weight, but not always, and not exclusively.
The weight of the load being pulled would be figured against the weight of the horse, and muscular exertion that is needed to counter the weight of the load. The forces generated by the horse’s muscular effort would be similar to the potential forces considered when muscles would spasm (which could displace a fractured bone) so the mechanical traction had to be sufficient to counter that force. With the horse, you’d have to factor in the ground surface he was working on, and the resistance created by the contact of his load with the ground (wheels versus logs being dragged, etc). So it could get complicated to figure out. You could try googling traction and go from there.
ADD….I like Greg B’s answer. Sounds much easier than all that math !!!!!