The impact of bob-skeleton sled dynamics on steering performance

The Performance Sports Engineering Laboratory has had a 10 year partnership supporting the British Skeleton team. We have been part of the team that helped win 5 medals, including 3 successive gold medals at the winter Olympics [Amy Williams(2010) and Lizzy Yarnold(2014, 2018)]. A series of EngD and PhD student's research has progressively allowed a greatly enhanced understanding of the fundamental science that allows the combination of athlete and sled to descend a track as rapidly as possible. There is still a significant question of how best to design the sled and its runner such that the athlete sliding can maximise their control of the sled trajectory. The dynamic interaction of the runner contact with the ice, design of the limited edges that bite into the ice, the distortion of the sled activated by the slider and their reaction time and training all play a part.

The project will build on the expertise of the research team in achieving performance gains in elite sport (Turnock,Banks); understanding of how human-in-the-loop dynamic test environments (Taunton); advanced control engineering (Rogers); and ice physics (Symmonds) can be used to allow the development of a free-running human activated simulation of a track descent for the first time. Significant developments have already taken place and this project will concentrate on exploiting the understanding already gained but within the context of a virtual reality environment that captures the essential physics, human factors and a whole system model.