Rice Lake Intercomp SW Deluxe Portable Vehicle Scale User Manual
Page 28
SW Users
REV G, February, 2000
28
1) The first requirement is to measure the wheel base and track. Center of gravity
will be measured from the center of the tire contact patch; use the center of the
tire for the track, and the center of the hub for the wheel base. For our
calculations we must select a point as the starting point of our measurements;
this can be any point. We will select the center of the left front hub as our home
point. Picking this point will simplify some calculations. Use inches to the
nearest tenth of an inch. Each one of these measurements is called a moment
arm.
2) Weigh the car. Add all the weight together. This sum is called the total weight.
3) Take each wheel weight and multiply the weight by the distance measurement.
This is done on each axis. This product is called the moment. Please see the
worked example below.
4) Add up the moments for each axis; this total is called the total moment.
5) Divide the total moment for each axis by the total weight. This gives the
center of gravity.
See Figure 1 on next page