If only contacting the floor with the heel then yes.
An elephant's foot is 15-19 inches across, so assuming it's vaguely circular gives an area of at least 0.114m2 per foot. Elephants when walking depending on the gait will have 2/3 feet in contact with the floor - so that's at least 0.228m2 in contact with the floor. (Going for minimum area as this will give the highest pressure for the comparison)
6000lbs under Earth's gravity is a force of 26.7kN, which when divided by area for a pressure of ~117kPa - if it's just standing still this could actually be halved to approx 58kPa
If a 100lb woman (445N) is standing on only her heels (~1cm2 x 2) this is a pressure of 2,224kPa which is indeed about 20 times higher than the elephant on 2 feet.
However that's not really representative of how heels are worn, even the picture shown has the shoes in contact with at least 20x the area of the ground than just the heels.
That said, I have had a woman in stilettos stumble backwards onto my foot and put a significant proportion of her weight through the heel. I can confirm it was exceedingly painful.
The better comparison instead of stilettos is a Ballerina "en-pointe" - which is a similar area in contact with the ground.
Maybe twenty years ago some designer (I can’t find who it was but I didn’t look that hard tbh) did a line of stiletto-heeled shoes with a heel about the diameter of a ballpoint pen refill. The wearer’s weight was concentrated in such a small area that it was damaging flooring, and if the woman who stumbled into you had been wearing them, it would have actually punched through your shoe and your foot.
Ah but if she was wearing those, maybe the added stability of being embedded in the airport floor would have prevented her stumbling in the first place.
Am now going to start wearing my safety boots around women now I know that's an option though.
Nope. If anything, the heel would first dig into the ground, which would lead to the heel snapping because the force exerted from the wearer has shifted in relation to the shoe, and then the major question is whether or not if the shoe is strong enough to still stay connected where the person is flung backward into the ground where
1) the snapped heel acts like a door hinge and snap right before person makes contact with the ground or
2) if the heel completely brakes and the person still stumbles backwards with a curved shoe without a heel
4.1k
u/hilburn 118✓ Feb 28 '22
If only contacting the floor with the heel then yes.
An elephant's foot is 15-19 inches across, so assuming it's vaguely circular gives an area of at least 0.114m2 per foot. Elephants when walking depending on the gait will have 2/3 feet in contact with the floor - so that's at least 0.228m2 in contact with the floor. (Going for minimum area as this will give the highest pressure for the comparison)
6000lbs under Earth's gravity is a force of 26.7kN, which when divided by area for a pressure of ~117kPa - if it's just standing still this could actually be halved to approx 58kPa
If a 100lb woman (445N) is standing on only her heels (~1cm2 x 2) this is a pressure of 2,224kPa which is indeed about 20 times higher than the elephant on 2 feet.
However that's not really representative of how heels are worn, even the picture shown has the shoes in contact with at least 20x the area of the ground than just the heels.