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Some of the most important high-speed training for our Olympic athletes takes them inside a tunnel, where they stand very still.
There’s a wind tunnel at the National Research Council — not the big one near the airport but a smaller tunnel on Montreal Road — where air blows fast over and around their suits in a never-ending contest against drag.
Bodies moving fast through air create drag. Drag kills speed. But the right suit can minimize drag.
Annick D’Auteuil calls air “the invisible enemy. You don’t see air so you don’t think you are forcing against something. But it’s actually very important,” she said.
She is one of four NRC researchers working to help our Olympic athletes by making them slide through air more smoothly, a quest that began for her in 2005 and one that has no end in sight.
When athletes visit the wind tunnel, “we will ask them to go in a specific position and we try different suits” and measure drag at different speeds and positions, she said.
The team has worked on many sports, but currently it focuses on testing and improving suits for luge, alpine skiing, long-track speed skating and ski cross. There’s also work on summer sports — cycling, wheelchair athletics, and kayak.
And it’s no simple solution of picking one fastest type of suit and giving it to every athlete.
Rules in different sports are different. A luge suit is designed to be completely impermeable, so that no air gets through it. Porous suits create more drag.
But alpine ski suits must not be totally air-tight. It’s a safety rule: If a skier fell while wearing an impermeable suit, he or she would slide much farther than in a porous suit, raising the likelihood of injury.
And while a luge suit is ultra-tight, ski cross clothing must have measurable looseness on the arms and thighs to allow movement.
And different materials are suitable for different speeds and body positions, and even different for men and women.
NRC tests suits from suppliers such as Descente, but these are not models you can buy off the shelf.
The drag issue “is more important when you go at high speed,” D’Auteuil said. “So if you are skating in long track you are going at 60 kilometres per hour. And then you talk about ski cross, 75 or 80 (km/h). Alpine skiing is even more — 120 km/h.”
As speed increases, drag increases even more. The physics rule is that drag is proportional to the velocity (speed) squared, so that if you double your speed, you quadruple the drag.
For those who skipped physics, just imagine following a car that has a mattress strapped on the roof. It’s fine on a city street but a little scary on the Queensway.
Every developed country with a serious Olympic program is doing this kind of work, “like the Netherlands, Germany — those that are at a high level,” D’Auteuil said.
In Canada “we have to support our Canadian athletes and make sure that we provide them the edge, so when they are at the start line they known that their equipment is at the international level.”
But what about Tonga? we asked. A Tongan skier marched in the opening ceremony without wearing a top at all — just oil. How fast would he be?
Sadly, the NRC hasn’t tackled that one yet.
tspears@postmedia.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
There’s a wind tunnel at the National Research Council — not the big one near the airport but a smaller tunnel on Montreal Road — where air blows fast over and around their suits in a never-ending contest against drag.
Bodies moving fast through air create drag. Drag kills speed. But the right suit can minimize drag.
Annick D’Auteuil calls air “the invisible enemy. You don’t see air so you don’t think you are forcing against something. But it’s actually very important,” she said.
She is one of four NRC researchers working to help our Olympic athletes by making them slide through air more smoothly, a quest that began for her in 2005 and one that has no end in sight.
When athletes visit the wind tunnel, “we will ask them to go in a specific position and we try different suits” and measure drag at different speeds and positions, she said.
The team has worked on many sports, but currently it focuses on testing and improving suits for luge, alpine skiing, long-track speed skating and ski cross. There’s also work on summer sports — cycling, wheelchair athletics, and kayak.
And it’s no simple solution of picking one fastest type of suit and giving it to every athlete.
Rules in different sports are different. A luge suit is designed to be completely impermeable, so that no air gets through it. Porous suits create more drag.
But alpine ski suits must not be totally air-tight. It’s a safety rule: If a skier fell while wearing an impermeable suit, he or she would slide much farther than in a porous suit, raising the likelihood of injury.
And while a luge suit is ultra-tight, ski cross clothing must have measurable looseness on the arms and thighs to allow movement.
And different materials are suitable for different speeds and body positions, and even different for men and women.
NRC tests suits from suppliers such as Descente, but these are not models you can buy off the shelf.
The drag issue “is more important when you go at high speed,” D’Auteuil said. “So if you are skating in long track you are going at 60 kilometres per hour. And then you talk about ski cross, 75 or 80 (km/h). Alpine skiing is even more — 120 km/h.”
As speed increases, drag increases even more. The physics rule is that drag is proportional to the velocity (speed) squared, so that if you double your speed, you quadruple the drag.
For those who skipped physics, just imagine following a car that has a mattress strapped on the roof. It’s fine on a city street but a little scary on the Queensway.
Every developed country with a serious Olympic program is doing this kind of work, “like the Netherlands, Germany — those that are at a high level,” D’Auteuil said.
In Canada “we have to support our Canadian athletes and make sure that we provide them the edge, so when they are at the start line they known that their equipment is at the international level.”
But what about Tonga? we asked. A Tongan skier marched in the opening ceremony without wearing a top at all — just oil. How fast would he be?
Sadly, the NRC hasn’t tackled that one yet.
tspears@postmedia.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
