3 ms·

Would three wheels be enough?

• webmaven 5y ago
  > Would three wheels be enough? Potentially, but there are a number of issues to overcome, such as: More weight on each wheel compresses the soil more. This is possibly alleviated by the 3rd wheel not being in line with the other two, or that might make the problem worse, I'm not sure. Steering, handling, tipping. With a triangular wheel base, the tractor will seem more top heavy for any given size. This is less of a problem than it would be for eg. an SUV, but it is still a problem. Widening the footprint overcomes this but introduces transportation and parking problems, not to mention having to reconsider spacing of row crops etc. Overcoming that is possible by making the whole thing an articulated tripod that can adjust the wheelbase at need (and incidentally maneuver in any direction), but the flexibility gained comes at the cost of quite a bit more complexity that is unlikely to be worth it for farming equipment (construction equipment might be a different matter, but I wouldn't bet on it).