Abstract
Transporting heavy objects has a long history from the early civilizations thousands of years ago. However, it is difficult to investigate the ancient cases due to limited information. The experiments with reproductions of ancient sledges performed by Japanese tribologists provide quantitative information for the investigations of the ancient cases of heavy-load trasportation. The experimental results are used to verify two estimate methods with average pulling force and with average power. Then, two typical Chinese cases in the 15th-16th century of lubricated wood-on-ice sliding and wheeled vehicles were investigated with the two estimate methods, and compared with some typical modern cases of heavy-load transportation. The feasibility of the 16-wheel vehicle and the sledge sliding on lubricated ice in ancient China is verified.
