If you are in snow or ice especially in R1's More weight won't help much you need to increase the coefficient of adhesion between the tire and ground. your money would be best invested in some chains. especially if you don't plan on leaving the wheel weights on all the time. I have not had a chance to invest in chains for my M8540 yet as its not my primary mode for cleaning off the driveway, but i have loaded rear tires 900 + pounds in each tire and it still sucks in hard pack snow or ice. I was on my way over to my buddies 2.5 miles away the other day to work on some firewood and struggled to get going on the hill in front of my house in 4wd My total weight with my wood box and loader is pushing 10,000 lbs. My parents have an old 2wd ingersoll 4018, with chains only no weights on the rears and that thing plows snow like mad even on ice.
The amount of force you can generate prior to wheel spin (static Friction) can be measured by F= u N
Where
F= Tractor pulling/ pushing force
u = coefficient of friction
N = Normal force perpendicular to the road surface for this example assume level ground.
Assume 2wd for example you have 2500 lbs on the rear axle on gravel the force you can generate is F= 2500lbs *0.6 = 1500 lbs
on hard pack snow you generate 625 lbs of force
on ice you could only generate 250 lbs of force
With snow chains and the same weight you could generate at least 1000 lbs of force but probably more. to calculate how much weight you would have to add on level ground to get the same traction you would need to solve F/u -2500lbs = Added weight = 1000lbs /.25 -2500 lbs = 1500 lbs of additional weight on level ground. On a 10% or 20% slope all of this goes out the window and
your future looks very dismal :laughing: (see part 2) as your additional weight is now only a portion of the normal force increase, the rest is additional weight trying to pull you down the the hill ,this gets geometry involved and the example gets much longer.
Friction Coefficients for Ag tires to various surfaces
Assuming your driveway is gravel the coefficient of friction is approximately 0.6
Hard pack snow = 0.25
Ice =0.1
estimated friction values for various surface and ag tires found here
Tire Friction coeffiecnts
Snow chains are a little harder to find information on but i found this
link stating that snow chains must have a friction level of at least 0.4 on hard pack snow.
Part two the more entertaining part other people who could benefit from chains
This guy can't even stop himself from sliding down the hill and he probably weighs 15000 lbs