Drag characteristics of speed-skating suits were measured at Subsonic Wind Tunnel Laboratory in Korea Air Force Academy.The objective of wind tunnel test is to find the best combination of fabric patterns and designs to develop a new low-drag suit compared with existing suits for enhancing speed-skating speed performance.Low-drag fabric materials were chosen from the preliminary research and adapted to new suits.In the current experimental research,3 newly developed suits and 4 existing suits were tested with a model mannequin taking,so called,the ?Glide? pose,which is the most occupied attitude during speed-skating race.Some of suits with new fabric materials showed better drag characteristics than the existing ones,which reduced the total drag by 2.3~2.53.It is also observed that the drag characteristics can be changed by the wind speed.
Speed skating suit Fabric materials Wind tunnel test Drag characteristics
Ki-Hun Lee In-Ki Kim Kwang-Soo Kim Kybeom Kwon Young-Jin Moon Eun-Mi Choi Oh-Kyung Kwon Mi-Kyung Kim Yung-Hwan Byun
Korea Air Force Academy,635 Danjae-ro,Namil-myun,Sangdang-gu,Cheongju 363-849,Korea Korea Institute of Sports Science,727 Hwarang-ro,Nowon-gu,Seoul 139-800,Korea Korea Research Institute for Fashion Industry,26 Palgong-ro 45-gil,Dong-gu,Daegu 701-170,Korea BSG Co.,Ltd.,6 3Gongdan-ro 48-gil,Buk-gu,Daegu 702-813,Korea DYETEC,92 Dalseocheon-ro,Seo-gu,Daegu 703-834,Korea Konkuk University,120 Neungdong-ro,Gwangjin-gu,Seoul 143-701,Korea