Engineering in Performance—Optimizing the Sled for Speed
Once a slider arrives at the maximum weight allowed, the next hurdle in winning luge competitions is getting down the track faster than everyone else. The question is: What makes a sled slide down a steep luge track faster? The answer involves some serious engineering.
The competitive factors come in two parts. The first, which we’ll talk about in this post, is parallelism. To maximize speeds, the blades of the sled need to be mirror images of each other. But parallelism is not exactly the correct term to use, because the pod of the sled, being made of fiberglass, is flexible. So perfect parallelism is never quite achieved—or even desirable—during a luge run.
That’s because the center line of the sled, the hypothetical mid-point between the blades, is shifting constantly. The center line moves as the slider leans his or her body weight in one direction or another, applying pressure to the blades with the feet, to steer the sled throughout the course of the run.
Universal Tool in Milwaukee, one of our suppliers, helped us to develop a fixture that digitally measures the distance between the blades. The measuring device plots the distance, at any given point along a blade, from its opposite blade as stress is applied to subtly alter the “spread” between the blades. The slider, in the quest for fastest descent path, is constantly adjusting the blades. And, ideally, the sled’s design facilitates keeping a “mirror image” of the blades as nearly perfectly as possible, maximizing the speed of descent.
Think of the maneuver in skiing called “snow plowing.” That’s an action that points the tips of the skis together at the front and widens the span between the backs of the skis to the widest possible point. This action serves to slow down and eventual stop the descent of the skier.
A slider wants to do exactly the opposite of this, though in a highly controlled way. The slider wants the alignment of the blades of the luge sled to be just a small fraction more open at the front to avoid entirely any “snow plow” effect.
This measuring device, shown in the photo above, is now being used by the USA Luge Team to guide refinements to sled design. It’s an example of how Vulcan strives to help the USA Luge team meet its goal of “engineering in performance” for the team’s key piece of equipment. Next week, we’ll talk about the importance of properly contouring the blades.
Visit our website to learn more about Vulcan’s engineering capability. www.vulcangms.com