Heaviest Vehicle Pulled 100 ft. by a Pair

Jacob and Matthew Fast have just broken the record for the "Heaviest Vehicle Pulled Over 100 ft by a Male Pair". They are the sons of multiple record-breaking strongman Reverend Kevin Fast. They followed in their father's footsteps by pulling three fire trucks over 100 ft on flat ground. These fire trucks combined to weigh 86,350 kg or 190,400 lb. 

After hearing that these brothers pulled this crazy amount of weight I wondered how much work they had done.

I initially looked up both the static and kinetic coefficients of friction. I then realized that overcoming the static friction occurs over such a small distance that the work done would essentially be zero. The kinetic coefficient friction = 0.8.

https://youtu.be/lujbMZ_VJ-E

           

For work, only the Forces in the x-direction need to be considered. After the initial movement, I will assume that there is no acceleration, so the forces sum to zero. 

                     Fapplied = Sum of FFriction

                               = FN(Coefficient of Kinetic Friction)

                               =m*g*uk 

                                    = 86,350 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 0.8

                               =676,984 N

So, assuming each brother applied the same force, Jacob and Matthew each applied a force of 338,492 N.

To find the work each brother did, we simply need to account for the distance (100 ft or 30.48 m)

                  W = F*d

                      = 338,492 N * 30.48 m

                      = 10,317,236 N*m

So each brother did 10,317,236 N*m of work. 

Let's put this in terms that we can understand.

The brothers applied this work over 38 seconds. 

So the Power of each brother was about 271,506 watts. 

This is equal to about 364 horsepower!