>> Hmm, interesting. I wouldn't have expected that to work.
> 
> What, that a car has more weight on the front wheels than the back?

Possibly, once you've got the back wheels up on a ramp. ;-)

I meant more that I wouldn't have expected to be able to just completely 
disregard 3/4 the weight of the object just because I'm only looking at 
one wheel.

>> Sure. I just meant that they probably design them to easily support 
>> more weight than any common car that somebody might try to put on them.
> 
> You would think so.

So it's probably rated to 5 tonnes or something.

>> Isn't the worst-case when you drive the car onto the ramp and the 
>> suspension jiggles it up and down over one support column?
> 
> Probably.  But I really suspect in the design of these things that they 
> just make a few and test them.

Oh, yeah, probably. More like they figure out approximately how much 
load it's supposed to take, then design it to withstand 80% more or 
something, and then go check whether it breaks or not.

>> So... what the hell is the thickness of a tin can then?
> 
> 0.2 mm or thereabouts.

...my God. You can make metal that thin?? o_O

>> Those seem to deform pretty easily.
> 
> You mean by squeezing them on the sides?  Well yes, I can bend my ruler 
> too pretty easily and that's 1mm thick!  What you're doing there is 
> essentially using a huge lever, you are moving your fingers a few cm to 
> cause a contraction/expansion of a few microns in the surface of the 
> material, generating a huge stress which causes it to permanently 
> distort.  Now try to permanently stretch a tin can by pulling on each 
> end :-)

Heh, yeah, well, those horizontal beams may only be 5cm long, but they 
have up to 2 tonnes pushing them sideways. That's a lot of force...

PS. Apparently human bones have a higher tensile strength than solid 
copper. WTF?

Post a reply to this message