Materials shape the Olympic Winter Games
- PDF / 2,298,704 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 585 x 783 pts Page_size
- 44 Downloads / 184 Views
A
s I write this article, we are 22 days away from the start of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games,1 which will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from February 9 to 25. By the time you read this, the Games will be over. Consequently, being a connoisseur of the Olympics, I take this opportunity to make some bold predictions. First, records will be broken in many events. Second, some events will inspire significant controversy surrounding the judging. Third, viewers worldwide will be riveted to their television sets during much of the Games. Fourth, new technologies inspired by materials research will contribute to the performances of many athletes. The first Olympic Winter Games were held in Chamonix, France, in 19242 and subsequently took place every four years from 1924 through 1992. After that, they were shifted by two years to be offset from the Olympic Summer Games. The history of winter sports however predates the Winter Games. Skiing dates back at least 5000 years, although some suggest that Chinese paintings created 10,000 years ago depict skiing.3 Skiing was an efficient method of travel across snow. Early skis were made of bone or wood, often with an animal skin attached. The earliest history of ice skating is identified to be around 3000 years ago.4 Skating was also an efficient method of travel on ice and snow. The earliest ice skates were flattened bones or other materials that were strapped to the feet to allow people to glide more easily on ice. Steel blades with sharp edges for cutting into the ice did not appear until around 1200–1300 AD. In time, these purely practical skills on snow and ice were socialized for winter enjoyment. In recent decades, modern facilities have proliferated into areas that do not have a cool enough climate to support outdoor winter sports. Many otherwise balmy cities (such as Los Angeles) have professional
ice hockey teams and year-round access to ice skating rinks. Huge indoor skiing facilities have been built in places around the world, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.5 These ice rinks and indoor ski facilities are possible through the development of more efficient air conditioning and refrigeration systems, as well as the ability to produce snow and properly conditioned ice. As those of you familiar with ice skating know, machines (commonly Zambonis) used to clean and resurface ice in rinks have improved significantly over the years. There is a long history of advances in technologies and materials used to make skis.6 Although a ski appears to be a rather simple piece of lightweight synthetic material, making skis involves intertwined issues of physics, engineering, and materials science.7 Skis need to be lightweight so they can be maneuvered easily across surfaces, and yet strong enough to survive encounters with ice and rocks and the stresses associated with sudden stops or high-speed turns. Skis must also be waterproof. They are constructed with two kinds of camber, or bend, in order to more evenly balance the weight of the skier and to allow the skier to
Data Loading...
