The Importance of Weight Distribution in Vehicle Acceleration

When it comes to understanding how weight affects a vehicle's acceleration, it is essential to consider the weight distribution. The placement and amount of weight on each axle can significantly impact the vehicle's ability to accelerate.

We began by examining the effect of adding 100 kilograms of weight to the front or rear of a vehicle. We assumed a 50/50 weight distribution, meaning half of the total mass was located in the front and half in the back. By multiplying this weight by 0.2 (or 20%) and dividing it by the mass of the vehicle, we were able to calculate the maximum acceleration achieved. In the first scenario, where the weight was added to the front or rear, we found that the maximum force that could be accelerated was 0.0727g for a front-heavy distribution and 0.1g for a rear-heavy distribution. This represents an improvement of 21% in the latter case.

However, if we had chosen a different weight distribution, such as 50/50, the results were significantly different. In this scenario, adding 100 kilograms to the rear axle resulted in a 9% improvement in acceleration, whereas adding the same amount of weight over the center of gravity made no difference and even decreased performance. This highlights the importance of considering weight distribution when attempting to optimize acceleration.

In cases where the vehicle has a lighter rear end, adding weight can cause a significant improvement in acceleration. Conversely, if the vehicle already has a good weight distribution, the benefits of adding weight are reduced. Nevertheless, there is still value in adding weight if it can be done without compromising handling or fuel economy.

It's also essential to note that this approach only applies to two-wheel drive vehicles. If the vehicle has all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive capabilities, and the torque can be split between the front and rear axles, then adding weight becomes less relevant. In these situations, adding weight would not provide any benefits and could even hinder performance by reducing traction.

Finally, it's crucial to consider the placement of added weight carefully. Throwing sandbags onto the roof or side of a vehicle, for example, can have detrimental effects on fuel efficiency, handling, and braking performance. Conversely, strategically placing weight over the front or rear axle can improve acceleration, but only if the vehicle is traction-limited.

In conclusion, understanding the impact of weight distribution on vehicle acceleration is crucial for optimizing performance. By considering the placement and amount of added weight, drivers can make informed decisions about when to add weight and how it will affect their vehicle's behavior.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be answering the question does adding weight to your vehicle improve acceleration and in the vast majority of cases the answer is no but under rare circumstances for example you may see trucks place sandbags in the back of their truck when it's snowing or icy conditions something like that in order to have better traction and you may think what's the logic behind that is there truth to it so we're going to get into the math and explain if there actually is a legitimate reason for doing so so here we have our example we've got a truck with a 70 30 weight distribution the weight distribution is very important and we have a mass of a thousand kilograms and the surface conditions are such that we're just going to say it's snowy it's icy and so the coefficient of friction between the tire and the road is 0.2 and of course the vehicle is rear-wheel drive so our lovely equation f equals mu n so 300 kilograms that's the weight on the rear tire 30 percent times a thousand 300 kilograms multiply that by gravity 9.81 meters per second multiply that by 0.2 and that will give us a force of 588.6 newtons this is the maximum force that this tire can accelerate based on the traction that it has okay and of course that's both rear tires so let's get this into something that we can understand better because accelerating with 588.6 newtons doesn't really mean too much to us so let's use the equation force equals mass times acceleration 588.6 equals a thousand kilograms times acceleration 588.6 divided by 1000 that gives us just carry the decimal over 0.5886 meters per second squared still i'm not really familiar with what that's going to feel like so let's divide this by 9.81 and that gives us 0.062 gs so this the maximum force that this truck can accelerate based on the traction that it has is .06 gs now if we were to add 100 kilograms on top of that what would the acceleration then be and you have to keep in mind here this is considering the fact that the engine has enough torque to be able to accelerate at that if it can accelerate with 0.06 gs which is a very small number so most vehicles will certainly be able to do that and if they don't you know something's probably wrong with the engine but point is it only works if you cannot basically you have enough power so that you can exceed this force so this is the maximum force you could accelerate with due to traction because you're traction limited so we're adding 100 kilograms to the rear we've got 300 plus 100 kilograms the weight that we added directly on top of the rare axle multiplied by 9.81 times 0.2 that gives us 784.8 newtons we divide that by 1100 times 9.81 and that gives us .0727 repeating gs so this may not seem like a huge difference 0.06 versus 0.0727 but actually it's a 21 improvement in the maximum amount that your vehicle can accelerate so that's pretty significant now what if we change up the scenario and we have a different weight distribution as i mentioned previously it is important so now we're going to say it's a 50 50 weight distribution same mass so we've got 500 half of a thousand kilograms times 9.81 times 0.2 divided by the mass of the vehicle a thousand times 9.81 and that gives us 0.1 g so the maximum force that we could accelerate if this vehicle had a better weight distribution would be 0.1 g which is as you can see higher than these previous examples now if we then add 100 kilograms to the rear of the truck then we've got 600 times 0.2 divided by 1100.109 so we're only having a 9 improvement in this case by adding the same amount of weight that we did previously so it's going to be more significant in cases where your weight distribution is not in your favor where you have less weight in the rear so if you have a really light rear end adding weight can cause a significant improvement if you have a pretty good weight distribution it won't be as significant still helps in this situation 0.109 gs is better than 0.1 but you know there's other sacrifices you're making by adding weight so let's say you add 100 kilograms over the center of gravity so you add and we're going to use the same scenario where we have a 50 50 weight distribution so you add 100 kilograms over the center 550 would be half of 1100 times 0.2 divided by the mass of the vehicle 1100.1 g as you notice that's the exact same as before we've added weight in this situation before so by adding weight over the center of gravity you do absolutely nothing and in fact you only make things worse because there are negative things that come with adding weight to a vehicle handling fuel economy deceleration things like that the other thing to keep in mind is this only applies if you have two-wheel drive if you have all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive and you can have the torque split such that the front and rear can optimize torque in order to accelerate then in any situation adding weight is only going to make acceleration worse because it's essentially doing the same thing here you're just adding weight over the available traction that you already have you don't need it and so there's no point in doing it so if you have four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive you don't really want to be adding weight ever now adding 100 kilograms over the front axle uh let's say you just have no clue what you're doing and you're like alright whatever i heard that you add sandbags i throw it over the front of the truck and then i go on about my way well let's see what happens in this case so now we have the same amount of weight on the rear axle if we're putting 100 kilograms directly on top of the rear tire same amount of weight on the rear so 500 kilograms we're doing the 50 50 distribution multiply that by 0.2 but now we're dividing by 1100 instead of 1000 because we've added weight well now we can only accelerate with 0.091 gs so it's ten percent worse because we didn't realize where we should have placed that weight so weight placement is critical uh that's my number one point right here and also the other really critical thing is this only works if you're traction limited so for example if you're just on the road and you want to add weight to your car because you think you're going to accelerate faster most of the time on road you've got a really high coefficient of friction and so you don't need to worry about this you can accelerate plenty fast you don't need to add weight to do it and so in most situations it's not going to be beneficial the other thing is you're going to have more fuel consumption you're going to have worse handling and you're going to have worse braking because you're adding weight and then once more you know if your vehicle is not traction limited acceleration becomes worse so in any scenario where traction is not the problem and you add weight you only decrease acceleration but in the rare circumstances if it's snowy outside you can't get your truck moving because the rear wheels keep spinning adding weight over them can mathematically as we've shown here help so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be answering the question does adding weight to your vehicle improve acceleration and in the vast majority of cases the answer is no but under rare circumstances for example you may see trucks place sandbags in the back of their truck when it's snowing or icy conditions something like that in order to have better traction and you may think what's the logic behind that is there truth to it so we're going to get into the math and explain if there actually is a legitimate reason for doing so so here we have our example we've got a truck with a 70 30 weight distribution the weight distribution is very important and we have a mass of a thousand kilograms and the surface conditions are such that we're just going to say it's snowy it's icy and so the coefficient of friction between the tire and the road is 0.2 and of course the vehicle is rear-wheel drive so our lovely equation f equals mu n so 300 kilograms that's the weight on the rear tire 30 percent times a thousand 300 kilograms multiply that by gravity 9.81 meters per second multiply that by 0.2 and that will give us a force of 588.6 newtons this is the maximum force that this tire can accelerate based on the traction that it has okay and of course that's both rear tires so let's get this into something that we can understand better because accelerating with 588.6 newtons doesn't really mean too much to us so let's use the equation force equals mass times acceleration 588.6 equals a thousand kilograms times acceleration 588.6 divided by 1000 that gives us just carry the decimal over 0.5886 meters per second squared still i'm not really familiar with what that's going to feel like so let's divide this by 9.81 and that gives us 0.062 gs so this the maximum force that this truck can accelerate based on the traction that it has is .06 gs now if we were to add 100 kilograms on top of that what would the acceleration then be and you have to keep in mind here this is considering the fact that the engine has enough torque to be able to accelerate at that if it can accelerate with 0.06 gs which is a very small number so most vehicles will certainly be able to do that and if they don't you know something's probably wrong with the engine but point is it only works if you cannot basically you have enough power so that you can exceed this force so this is the maximum force you could accelerate with due to traction because you're traction limited so we're adding 100 kilograms to the rear we've got 300 plus 100 kilograms the weight that we added directly on top of the rare axle multiplied by 9.81 times 0.2 that gives us 784.8 newtons we divide that by 1100 times 9.81 and that gives us .0727 repeating gs so this may not seem like a huge difference 0.06 versus 0.0727 but actually it's a 21 improvement in the maximum amount that your vehicle can accelerate so that's pretty significant now what if we change up the scenario and we have a different weight distribution as i mentioned previously it is important so now we're going to say it's a 50 50 weight distribution same mass so we've got 500 half of a thousand kilograms times 9.81 times 0.2 divided by the mass of the vehicle a thousand times 9.81 and that gives us 0.1 g so the maximum force that we could accelerate if this vehicle had a better weight distribution would be 0.1 g which is as you can see higher than these previous examples now if we then add 100 kilograms to the rear of the truck then we've got 600 times 0.2 divided by 1100.109 so we're only having a 9 improvement in this case by adding the same amount of weight that we did previously so it's going to be more significant in cases where your weight distribution is not in your favor where you have less weight in the rear so if you have a really light rear end adding weight can cause a significant improvement if you have a pretty good weight distribution it won't be as significant still helps in this situation 0.109 gs is better than 0.1 but you know there's other sacrifices you're making by adding weight so let's say you add 100 kilograms over the center of gravity so you add and we're going to use the same scenario where we have a 50 50 weight distribution so you add 100 kilograms over the center 550 would be half of 1100 times 0.2 divided by the mass of the vehicle 1100.1 g as you notice that's the exact same as before we've added weight in this situation before so by adding weight over the center of gravity you do absolutely nothing and in fact you only make things worse because there are negative things that come with adding weight to a vehicle handling fuel economy deceleration things like that the other thing to keep in mind is this only applies if you have two-wheel drive if you have all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive and you can have the torque split such that the front and rear can optimize torque in order to accelerate then in any situation adding weight is only going to make acceleration worse because it's essentially doing the same thing here you're just adding weight over the available traction that you already have you don't need it and so there's no point in doing it so if you have four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive you don't really want to be adding weight ever now adding 100 kilograms over the front axle uh let's say you just have no clue what you're doing and you're like alright whatever i heard that you add sandbags i throw it over the front of the truck and then i go on about my way well let's see what happens in this case so now we have the same amount of weight on the rear axle if we're putting 100 kilograms directly on top of the rear tire same amount of weight on the rear so 500 kilograms we're doing the 50 50 distribution multiply that by 0.2 but now we're dividing by 1100 instead of 1000 because we've added weight well now we can only accelerate with 0.091 gs so it's ten percent worse because we didn't realize where we should have placed that weight so weight placement is critical uh that's my number one point right here and also the other really critical thing is this only works if you're traction limited so for example if you're just on the road and you want to add weight to your car because you think you're going to accelerate faster most of the time on road you've got a really high coefficient of friction and so you don't need to worry about this you can accelerate plenty fast you don't need to add weight to do it and so in most situations it's not going to be beneficial the other thing is you're going to have more fuel consumption you're going to have worse handling and you're going to have worse braking because you're adding weight and then once more you know if your vehicle is not traction limited acceleration becomes worse so in any scenario where traction is not the problem and you add weight you only decrease acceleration but in the rare circumstances if it's snowy outside you can't get your truck moving because the rear wheels keep spinning adding weight over them can mathematically as we've shown here help so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below\n"