Motor for Longitudinal Movement

Is this a test?...

P is power, τ is torque and ω is rotational speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower

How fast does it need to move?

Start-up torque to move 7,000 pounds is important.

It is a slow movement.

Edit:

Lyn posted what I was going to say while I was composing.

The power of the needed motor will be determined by the mass to be moved and the speed it is to be accelerated to. Assuming that friction is a set factor, a fractional HP motor will move a lot of weight. It just will be very slow. I would be concerned more with the rolling friction and the initial force needed to break the resting friction. If the tank is not completely full there will be a lag in the time and effort needed to accomplish the rolling speed.

And with that much weight, it's very important that it's perfectly level.

The tank it will be somewhere around 20% full.

What acceleration, deceleration rate?

How fast? (accel, run, stop times).

Any inclination or is it dead flat?

0.25hp with a sutable gear box should be sufficient if you don't mind waiting.

Thank you for your answer.

The 2 tanks will move in tadem, very slow.

There's no inclination.

For nice smooth operation, controlled accel, decel, etc, I would definitely consider a small AC drive for your system - it only adds $1k to $2k dollars and gives you lots of flexibility.

Why not skip the motor, and use 3 or 4 people with a rope? Or is this a repetitive process?

"Why not skip the motor, and use 3 or 4 people with a rope?" In my country you may also need a foreman with an assistant (to tell ´em when to stop pulling) + 1 guy from the labor union, one guy preparing the meal, one manager and one accountant...

:-)

no people with a rope, no way :-))

it is a repetitive process.

The motor that turns the rotating restaurant at the top of the British Telecom Tower in London is of the order of 1/4hp, because the rotation speed is so slow.

This is very interesting info.

My decision is 2HP motor with the right gearbox.

You will have to make mechanism for no load starting of the motor so that it speeds up without load and is then loaded.

If the load was not halting, this would not be necessary.

Also you can make a loop track so that the motor keeps rotating. The tank orientation will have to be maintained with some supports (bit tricky).

Gajanan Phadte