International Heat Transfer Conference 13
ISSN Online: 2377-424X
ISBN CD: 1-56700-226-9
ISBN Online: 1-56700-225-0
HEAT TRANSFER AND PHASE CHANGE ON THE BLACK RUN
page 1
DOI: 10.1615/IHTC13.p30.10
RÉSUMÉ
The sliding of skis is a fascinating but still unsolved problem. Although Man has walked on skis for more than 10 000 years, as it has been recently claimed by a Chinese archaeologist, a thorough understanding of the physics of skiing is still in its infancy.
There are several reasons why the design of downhill skis for competition is so difficult a problem:
- the skier, the skis, the snow and the ambient air constitute an interactive dynamic system,
- the ski is a composite structure with very peculiar dynamic properties,
- the thermophysical properties of snow are fuzzy,
- many intricate phenomena interact during the sliding of a ski on snow, such as load distribution, sole wettability and roughness, internal heat generation due to flexing, radiation, weather conditions, to name a few,
- the in situ measurement techniques and experiments are challenging.
The lecture will be concluded by some considerations on the design of smart skis for downhill races and speed skiing competition.