Dial back to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when Michael Phelps grabbed headlines for breaking an unprecedented number of records. His performance was undoubtedly amazing, but his swimsuit, the Speedo LZR Racer, got its share of fanfare as a must-have for record-breaking swimmers.
Phelps and many of his competitors embraced the LZR Racer (which we covered at the time) because of material and construction breakthroughs that resulted in less drag and, consequently, more record-setting performances. Laminated panels of a low-friction, water-repellent polyurethane membrane were placed strategically on the suit, and there were reports that it had about 38 percent less drag than ordinary Lycra.
What was interesting about the suit was that its development was more akin to aerospace engineering than any kind of fashion design. The Speedo team worked with the CAE vendor ANSYS and aggressively employed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to predict friction and flow around the body. The purpose was to identify the "drag hotspots" that would benefit most from low-friction panels.
The low-drag simulation collaboration between Speedo and ANSYS was a resounding success -- in fact, it may have been too successful. As a result of all the broken records that year, FINA, the international governing body for swimming, banned the Speedo LZR Racer and suits like it. New regulations barred material below the knees or on the arms of both women and men, and FINA outlawed any nonpermeable material like the kind used in the LZR Racer's panels.
"The new regulations meant Speedo had to go back to the drawing board and be imaginative about what other areas of the suit we could optimize," Joe Santry, head of research at its Aqualab global research and development facility, told us.
Speedo's answer is the new Fastskin Racing System: a Fastskin suit, a bathing cap, and goggles. When worn together, the system reduces full-body passive drag by up to 16.6 percent, improves oxygen economy by up to 11 percent (so the athlete can swim longer), and reduces active body drag by up to 5.2 percent, Santry said.
Click on the image below to view a slideshow on the new suit.
A free-surface simulation of the forces experienced when diving. (Source: Speedo, ANSYS)
Instead of reducing friction -- the approach taken by the banned suit -- the Fastskin Racing System uses compressive fabrics to change the swimmer's profile. "From an engineering point of view, we had to figure out what the optimum shape of the swimmer was to reduce drag," Santry said. The problem with that approach is that, unlike a car or airplane, the human body varies from person to person, and even an individual's shape can change on a day-to-day basis.
To address that concern, Aqualab made extensive 3D scans of athletes and worked with ANSYS to identify solutions that would have the same drag-reducing effect on everyone. "We are not talking about the lumps and bumps on a person that make them an individual -- we're looking at large datasets and creating an average person and areas we can optimize," Santry said. Working with ANSYS multiphysics tools, the team conducted more than 1,200 simulations to understand where the high-drag areas were and what to target for compression (the chest, for example) to optimize the swimmer's form.
ANSYS software also helped with the design of the cap and goggles by helping to mitigate the impact force generated by a dive, maximizing the structural strength of the goggle assembly, and understanding how the shape generated turbulence that could hurt downstream performance.
Last night I watched a 9.63 100 meter race. I saw the top 4 break 9.9. How many years ago did they first break 10 seconds in the 100? Wonder what the 100 YARD time was? These are bittersweet numbers though. Gymnasts who won this olympics have been practicing since they were 7 or 8 years old or less and as they age the damage they did to their young bones will haunt them. Many olympic champion figure skaters are crippled, or nearly so, when they reach their late 30's because of damage caused by practicing triple jumps in their early teens. Hopefully computer assisted analysis will help train future young athletes so the price of being a champion isn't a lifetime of pain.
Great point, Bob. Adherence to more rigid training programs and the effective use of technology, simulation in particular, to learn and analyze movements has definitely contributed to the record-setting contributions of today's athletes. Hope you are enjoying this phenomenon at work at the London Olympics.
CFD analysis of swimsuit drag is one small aspect of computer assisted analysis of athlete performance. Runners movements are analysed in 1/1000 second intervals to determine the most efficient moment to apply motivating force. The same for gymnasts, swimmers, rowers, divers, all aspects of track and field. Initally the country that developes the programs will benefit most, but as the technology becomes more available, all countries will use it. Athletes today are performing at a level deemed impossible ten years ago. I really don't think we are physically or genetically superior to humans of ten or twenty years past; but we are significantly better trained and that training enhancement has come largely from improved computer assisted analysis of all aspects of human performance. Just imagine the records that will fall next year!
Unfortunately, the weights in horse racing aren't equal. They're handicaps to make the race more unpredictable/exciting:
'In a handicap horse race, varying amounts of weight are added to the horse saddles. This is an attempt to even out the competition, in case some horses are clearly more dominant than others. It makes the outcome more difficult to predict, which means the track makes more money.
As this excellent article by Laura Hillenbrand notes, Seabiscuit often raced in handicaps with an absurdly heavy load of 130 pounds. An extra weight of two to three pounds is usually enough to slow a horse by a length." (http://ask.yahoo.com/20030814.html)
Also, with all of the talk about the ancient Olympians competing naked, it's interesting to note the athletes did not like this feature. It was all men, and married women were not allowed to view the competition. Unmarried women, however, were encouraged to attend. Many young men were allowed to wear a leather thong.
The reason for the birthday suits is the same reason at the base of this discussion -- an attempt to make the competition fair.
That's funny, Rob, but so true. I have to cast a vote with the camp that clothing or equipment will continued to be designed to give player's an edge--it's just human nature and the pace of technology. Seems to be fair within reason, that is.
Even if they were all naked, someone would develop a particular oil that would reduce the drag and friction from skin. People will always figure out some way to get an edge.
I think that it is ridiculous that runners and divers wear less clothing than swimmers. I believe that athletic wear should be just enough to keep the person decent no more. Clothes in no way should be used to enhance performance. If they allow clothes to be used in such way then why prohibit drugs. The idea is to give equal chance to all that participate not just those that can afford expensive performance enhancing equipment. The original Olympians were naked.
Now, if they can only invent a suit that eliminates sag, pouch, and wrinkles, I will be their first customer!
Actually, I think all is fair in love and sports outfits. The prize should go to the one who uses physics and engineering to their advantage. Why have to live with what has gone on before, or they would be riding those silly big-wheel bicycles in the Olympics.
If a countries are going to keep going broke sponsoring these things, they might as well have a few world's records under their belts!
I think that the swimmers should be naked. That makes it clearly the athletes performance and not some technical advantage. Back when the Greeks started this competition, all the athletes were naked. I wish we were more enlightened about these matters but ...........
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