technical guide

A larger spreader pad is not automatically safer

Outrigger load, ground capacity and the pad itself have to be considered together.

Close view of a red outrigger foot lowered onto a black spreader pad in an access-hire yard — Pad area alone does not prove that an outrigger load is safely supported.Photo: Matt Dean

The constraint

Matching outrigger load, ground capacity and pad performance

The outcome

All three parts of the support calculation are checked rather than assumed.

There are three separate questions: how much load the outrigger applies, whether the ground can take it and whether the pad can distribute it as expected.

A larger pad is not automatically a stronger pad. The machine is only half the equation; what it stands on matters just as much.

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