New rules for truthful play in curler snowboarding due to Swedish college students. Credit score: The Swedish Ski Affiliation
The game of curler snowboarding has lengthy been plagued with considerations. The wheels of the skis roll in another way, which may trigger the person’s pace to fluctuate significantly, and as such, the end instances might be impacted by a number of minutes.
Now college students at Chalmers College of Know-how in Sweden have developed a brand new measuring instrument and technique to standardize the resistance of the wheels—and make the game fairer. Beginning this yr, the Swedish Ski Affiliation will base its official pointers for advisable wheels on the scholars’ measurement technique.
The problem of variations in how simply curler ski wheels roll isn’t a brand new concern—there’s merely no official normal for the rolling resistance of the wheels that aggressive racers are allowed to make use of.
A number of years in the past, the Swedish Snowboarding Affiliation launched a suggestion that acknowledged that the resistance ought to correspond to what a skier would expertise on snow. This precept of resistance corresponds to what’s referred to within the sport as “standard wheel 2.”
On the identical time, there has not been a given normal for the way simply these normal wheels are allowed to roll. Subsequently, there have been curler skis in the marketplace with wheels that roll in another way, which in flip has led to unfair competitors circumstances.
Variations by minutes
Andreas Löfgren research on the Division of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers College of Know-how. Along with three fellow college students, he has developed a way and instrument for measuring the curler ski-wheels, to offer the game with a dependable and user-friendly answer to quantify rolling resistance—and thus additionally allow extra truthful competitors circumstances.
“Based on field data from the participants in the 2024 Junior SC in Roller Ski Shooting, we could see that the person who skied on the slowest roller wheels lost approximately three minutes compared to an equally strong skater who rode on the lightest skis,” says Löfgren.
“This difference is so significant that it is decisive for final placements. The winner of the race crossed the finish line in just under 28 minutes and the one who crossed the finish line three minutes later finished in eighth place.”
Löfgren has been conducting the work with Albert Hansson, Arvid Sandström, Jonatan Larsen, and supervisor Dan Kuylenstierna, Affiliate Professor in Microwave Electronics at Chalmers.
Half of the curler ski wheels exterior the accredited vary
With the brand new technique, the rolling resistance of the totally different wheels might be calculated utilizing an electrical motor that drives the wheels of the curler ski towards a flywheel whereas being loaded with a weight.
“The instrument can determine the rolling resistance of a ski with a margin of error of 1.1% within about a minute. It is compact enough to be transported in a regular passenger car and the person who will use the instrument may need about 15 minutes of instruction,” says Andréas.
In collaboration with the Swedish Ski Affiliation, the Chalmers college students have used the brand new measuring instrument to check the resistance of generally used normal wheels.
Based mostly on the checks, they’ve produced statistics and outlined what “normal rolling resistance” is and have additionally been capable of see how massive the unfold is between totally different manufacturers. Based mostly on the statistics, new pointers have been developed for which wheels ought to be accredited.
“This gave us the opportunity to see how big the spread really is. We tested 12 different wheels and half of them fell outside the approved range. Three of them rolled too slowly and three of them had too little resistance,” says Dan Kuylenstierna, who has supervised the scholars.
Dan himself has an amazing curiosity in curler snowboarding and the concept for the answer to the undertaking originated in a dialog with certainly one of Sweden’s most skilled curler skiers, Tobias Westman.
“Tobias has both Swedish Championship and World Championship gold medals on his list of achievements and currently runs a ski shop in Gothenburg. He told me how he meets customers every day who are faced with the problem of roller ski wheels that roll at different speeds. It was during that conversation that the idea of developing a new measurement method to standardize resistance was born,” Dan explains.
Based mostly on the take a look at outcomes, an inventory of wheels accredited for competitors may very well be drawn up and new, official pointers for rolling resistance might be offered to associations, organizers and curler ski producers by the Swedish Ski Affiliation.
“This means a lot to us. With standardized rolling resistances, everyone knows that a ‘2’ rolls a certain way, regardless of brand. This makes it easier to compare results and it will create fairer competitions,” says Ludvig Remb on the Swedish Ski Affiliation.
“In the future, we hope to be able to provide some kind of license to the manufacturers who produce correct wheels. In the long term, our vision is to also implement the method internationally, and the project is being followed with interest by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, FIS.”
Measuring instrument. Credit score: Chalmers College of Know-how | Albert Hansson
How the measurement instrument and technique work
Within the measuring instrument, a curler ski wheel loaded with a standardized weight is positioned towards a flywheel—a mechanical gadget that shops kinetic vitality. The flywheel is pushed at fixed pace by an electrical motor. As totally different wheels roll with totally different inertia, variations happen within the inside friction of the system.
Utilizing sensors that sense the present and voltage passing by the electrical motor, a microprocessor can calculate the system’s energy.
The microprocessor feeds the facility calculation additional by a verified habits mannequin—an empirically developed mathematical mannequin that finally returns the curler ski’s rolling friction coefficient.
The measurement outcomes have been in contrast and validated in collaboration with the Swedish Ski Affiliation by measurements of actual curler ski checks on asphalt in downhill and through staking on flat terrain.
The scholars’ know-how can be utilized to outline a normal for what ought to be thought of regular rolling resistance.
The strategy relies on the precept of conservation of vitality in thermodynamics, which states that vitality can neither be created nor destroyed however solely transformed from one type to a different.
Supplied by
Chalmers College of Know-how
Quotation:
New rules for truthful play in curler snowboarding due to Swedish college students (2025, February 21)
retrieved 21 February 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-02-fair-play-roller-swedish-students.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any truthful dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for data functions solely.
