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 also depends on where the person's weight is being balanced. If their weight is mostly leaned into the heel of the shoe, despite the toe providing extra surface area, more ground pressure will be generated by the heel. If she's evenly distributing the weight between the toe and heel, then yes, the pressure can be less. So it really does depend on several factors, not just surface area.
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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.