Deformation Analysis of Ski Boots for Alpine Ski Competition

Abstract

Located in heavy snow areas, Research Centre for Winter Sports Science of Kitami Institute of Technology has been promoting the development of the design of ski boots which can improve the Japanese skiers’ speed in alpine ski competition. Previous experimental studies have shown that the small deformation of foot bed and the quick lean angle of the leg during turn ^{(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(7)} greatly influence the improvement of skiers’ speed. In the present work, a numerical analysis has been carried out to examine the effect of small parts mounted on the bottom part of foot bed on the mechanical response of ski boots. Firstly, an experiment has been carried out on world-level Japanese top skiers as subjects to simulate the lean time, and the time variation pressure measured by sensor installed inside the boots. The time variation pressure was converted into nodal load and used as external load in the numerical analysis. As a result, it is shown that the lean angle during turn was increased when the part is installed under the foot bed. Relations between the part and the deformation of foot bed are discussed.