NEED FOR SPEED

Olympic athletes compete for medals based on hairsbreadth margins of performance. Nowhere is the quest for Olympic speed--and the engineering advances that enable thousandths-of-a-second wins--more apparent than on the luge track. Luge athletes, or "sliders," hurtle down the steep, icy chu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inASEE prism Vol. 31; no. 5; pp. 26 - 29
Main Author ROSE, DEBORAH LEE
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington American Society for Engineering Education 01.02.2022
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Subjects
3-D printers
Aerospace Education
Astronauts
Athletes
Engineering
FEATURES
Fiberglass
Fluid dynamics
Luge
Olympic games
Sleds
Sliders
Space Exploration
United States > US
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Summary:Olympic athletes compete for medals based on hairsbreadth margins of performance. Nowhere is the quest for Olympic speed--and the engineering advances that enable thousandths-of-a-second wins--more apparent than on the luge track. Luge athletes, or "sliders," hurtle down the steep, icy chute on open, fiberglass sleds or "pods," pulling an average of 3Gs in a minute-long run. That's about the same gravitational force as astronauts experience during liftoff. Everything, from the athletes' prone positioning, skintight suits, and pointy-toed booties to the lightweight materials and sleek aerodynamic shape of the sled, is designed to minimize friction and maximize speed. That's a tall order at the Beijing Winter Olympics; the Yanqing National Sliding Centre features 16 curves, including the world's first 360-degree twist.
ISSN:1056-8077
1930-6148