Putting snow knowledge into the development of winter sports equipment

The optimisation of winter sports equipment, such as skis or grooming machines has been principally based on trial and error. The influence of snow on the performance of the equipment has often been neglected. The aim of the present article is to show how snow knowledge can optimise the development and usage of winter sports equipment. In order to understand equipment interaction with snow, the first section of this article describes the most important characteristics of snow. In a further section, three examples are presented to show how snow knowledge has been used to improve winter sports equipment. The first example describes how the grooming of snow pistes can be improved by forecasting snow properties. The second example describes how skiing equipment is being optimized for enhanced carving behaviour through the development of a new laboratory measuring device. Finally, information obtained from a new analysing method is presented regarding the contact between ski base and snow.

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