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The RTI With or Without a Ramp by Doug Chartier **** Corrections for the below article**** article**** article**** There are 2 corrections to Doug’s RTI article last month. FIRST CORRECTION: Next to last paragraph, next to last line: Was, "corresponds to... sine .2643..." SHOULD read, "sine .2653" - a typo. SECOND CORRECTION: Last paragraph, 3rd line from bottom, and this throws the answer off considerably. Formula for side c is a/sine A. That is correct. I used 98, the wheelbase, instead of 26, the actual length of side a, so the calculation is: 26/.3420 = 76.02 - Your vehicle will drive 76" up a 20-degree ramp. To figure the RTI the formula is "travel up ramp divided by wheel base times 1000." 76/98 = .7755 times 1000 = 775.5. Your RTI would be 775 on a 20-degree ramp. ****
We do our best but sometimes the printer gets it before we done!!!**** It really isn't very difficult to determine your Ramp Travel Index with
a ramp or WITHOUT a ramp. All you need to do is get one front wheel off the
ground to the point that another wheel just leaves the ground. You can use a
ramp, big pile of dirt, a jack, winch or a strong neighbor or family member. OBJECTIVE:
To determine
the RTI (Ramp Travel Index) of your vehicle on any
degree of RTI Ramp. TOOLS
NEEDED: Tape
measure, a sine table or a calculator that will calculate sines, angles etc.
Calculators cost less than $20. MEASUREMENTS: Wheelbase of vehicle from the center of the front axle to the center of the rear axle and the distance from bottom of tire raised off the ground to the ground. Figure
1 below:
1) A, B
& C are angles of a right triangle 2) a, b & c are the sides opposite the angles 3) A is the “Ramp
Angle” 4) c is the hypotenuse of the right triangle
Don't leave me now. This is trigonometry, but it is really pretty simple
and also fun. Only a couple of formulas involved. Having the value
of any TWO of the above – A, B, C or a, b, c will allow you to calculate ALL
the other values. The only
thing you need is the sine of the angles. Sines
can be computed on a hand calculator that does Trig formulas or can be gotten
from a sine table. A brief sine
table is provided at the end of this article. c = a / sine A (length of c) The formula for determining the Ramp Travel
Index is: Travel up ramp
divided by wheel base times 1000 There are two reasons for using a ramp. The first
is because it is easier to drive it up than to lift it up. The second is that
angle A of a fabricated ramp is a
known factor. If you are able to determine the wheel lift in inches and know an
angle or the length of another side, you can calculate the RTI on any degree
ramp. If you don't have a ramp, devise a method of raising a wheel and taking
the measurement. All the rest is done on paper. We are going to calculate two different things. First will be the
angle of the ramp upon which your vehicle would have an RTI of exactly 1000. The
second is the method of determining the RTI on a ramp of ANY angle based on the
figures derived from your measurements - wheel height and wheelbase.
Figure 2:
We are going to assume now that you have not used a ramp. The front
wheel has been raised with a jack. Measure from the bottom of the front tire at
its center to the ground. For this example we will assume the wheelbase is 98 inches, and the lift of the front wheel is 26 inches. Note that
the wheelbase is the same measure as side c
in figure 1, the lift, 26 inches, is the same as side a in figure 1. Therefore
we know TWO of the values of the
triangle. With two values we can calculate all the values. From this data we want to determine two things. The ramp upon which the
vehicle will ramp a perfect 1000, and the RTI of any ramp of a specified degree.
We need the sine of angle A so that
we can check a sine table or use our calculator to calculate the angle. The
sine of an angle is the length of
the side opposite that angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse. 26
inches (length of side a)
divided by 98
inches (length of c) is .2653. The
angle that corresponds to the sine .2643 is 15
degrees, 23 minutes (60 minutes in a degree, so 23 minutes is a bit over 1/3
of a degree). Now, how about using our known information to determine the RTI of a 20
degree ramp. Again we have two pieces
of data, the lift or side a - 26 inches
- and angle A. We just assigned
it, 20 degrees. We do not know c
because we do not know where the beginning of the ramp will be in relation to
the wheelbase on this 20 degree ramp. It will be calculated based on known
information. We need the length of side c
so that we can divide it into the length of a
for the RTI calculation. The
formula for side c is: a / sine A. The sine of
20 degrees is .3420. 98/.3420 is
58.47 or 58.5 inches.
Your vehicle would drive 58.5 inches up a 20 degree ramp.
Do the RTI math and find that is an RTI of 596 on a 20 degree ramp. 12- .2079
17- .2924
22- .3746
27- .4540 |
