Sports Technology

ISSN: 1934-6182 (Print) 1934-6190 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtec20

Experimental analysis on parameters affecting

drag force on speed skaters

Luca Oggiano & Lars Roar Sætran

To cite this article: Luca Oggiano & Lars Roar Sætran (2010) Experimental analysis on
parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters, Sports Technology, 3:4, 223-234

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19346182.2012.663532

Published online: 08 May 2012.

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 Sports Technology, November 2010, 3(4): 223–234

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Experimental analysis on parameters affecting drag force

on speed skaters

LUCA OGGIANO & LARS ROAR SÆTRAN

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Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Abstract
In sports where high speed is reached and drag is the main force acting on the athlete’s body, the posture highly influences the
total drag. In speed skating, due to the fact that the total drag is proportional to the frontal area, the athletes minimize their
frontal area keeping the trunk parallel to the air flow. In this study it is shown that the aerodynamic resistance acting on the
legs counts up to 1/3 of the total drag. In order to reduce the drag, rough textiles with different patterns have been used in
sport suits. However, a certain number of parameters need to be considered in order to optimize the aerodynamic
performance of a textile. These parameters are: speed, diameter of the leg, yaw angle, distance between the legs and
roughness of the textile. This study shows a quantitative effect of the different parameters on the aerodynamic performances
of textiles. Tests have been carried out on cylinder models and cD-speed curves for each case have been acquired.
The contemporary effect of roughness and the diameter, roughness and yaw angle and roughness and distance between the
legs have been highlighted with the main conclusion that rough textiles are not always beneficial in terms of drag reduction.
However, an accurate choice of the different materials for different speed, yaw angles, size of the model and distance between
the legs could improve the overall aerodynamic properties reducing the drag.

Keywords: aerodynamics, apparel, textiles, drag, speed skating

The inertia (I [kgm/s2]) becomes important only

1. Introduction
Considering sports where the main goal is to cover a
certain distance in the shortest possible time (cycling,
speed skating, skiing, running, etc.) a number of forces
are acting against the athletes during their motion.
The power generated by the athlete is then spent to
overcome these negative forces in order to reach the
highest possible speed.
Narrowing the attention to speed skating, three
forces play a major role during a race: drag, friction and
inertia
The drag (D [kg·m·s-2]) is a function of the speed and
it increases with the speed and it is always negative.
The friction (F [kg·m·s-2]) between blade and ice is
both a negative force which oppose to the skater’s
motion but it is also used in order to transfer the
power to the ground and thus increase the speed of
the athlete during the pushing phase.
In order to simplify the picture, the pushing phase
will be discarded and the friction will be only
considered as a negative force.
when accelerations are present. This leads to the fact
that the inertia force has a higher importance in short
distance competitions where the speed of the athletes
is constantly increasing.
A deeper look at these forces is important in order to
understand when the aerodynamic resistance (or drag)
becomes important and thus a drag reduction would
be beneficial in terms of performances.
1.1 Drag
The drag can be written as:
1
D¼ AP cD rV 2 ¼ KV 2 ð1Þ
2
where Ap [m2] is the frontal area r [kg·m-3] is the air
density, V [m·s-1] is the wind speed and cD [– ] is the
non dimensional drag coefficient. It is common to
simplify the case including Ap [m2] r [kg·m-3] and cD
[– ] into a constant quantity K [kg·m-1].
This was mostly due to the fact that the athletes are
believed not to be able to reach the critical speed

Correspondence: L. Oggiano, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Dept. of Energy and Process Engineering, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
E-mail: luca.oggiano@ntnu.no
ISSN 1934-6182 print/ISSN 1934-6190 online q 2010 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19346182.2012.663532
 224 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran
VTRANS [m/s]which cause the fall in cD [ – ] due to the
change from laminar to turbulent regime and the
consequent reduction of pressure drag.
However, Pugh (1971) predicted that the flow
around the athletes could experience the transition
from laminar to turbulent regime with a consequent
drop in terms of drag. His prediction was not
supported by the results he obtained since he was not
able to reach the critical speed value during his tests.
A few years later DiPrampero, Mognoni, &
Saibene (1979) showed that cD is not constant but
dependent on different factors. Among these factors
also the speed is mentioned.
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These two assumptions leads to the fact that the
simple way of representing K as a constant is not
sufficient in order to have a complete picture of the
drag acting on a athlete. A more complex represen-
tation of K, where K is dependent on the speed and
on the different suits used, has been proposed by
Oggiano & Sætran (2008). In their work, tests were
carried out in the wind tunnel with a full scale
mannequin model, VTRANS has been reached and the
fall in cD occurred. A dependency on the type of suit
used and on the speed was found.
K ¼ K ðV ; suitÞ ð2Þ
In order to be able to quantify how much power an
athlete has to spend in order to overcome the drag the
power can be written as:
1 (D) and PI [kg·m2·s-3] the rate of change of the kinetic
P D ¼ DV ¼ AP cD ðV ; suitÞrV 2 V ð3Þ
2 and potential energy.
1.2 Frictional forces
A representation of the frictional forces has been
suggested by Bowden & Huges (1953) and it has
been used successively (De Koning, De Groot, & Van
Ingen Schenau, 2005).
The frictional force can be generically written as:
F ¼ mN ð4Þ
where m [ –] is the coefficient of friction and N
[kg·m·s-2] is the force normal to the ground. Thus,
the power that an athlete has to spend in order to
overcome the frictional force can be then written as:
P F ¼ mNV ð5Þ
The friction coefficient m [– ] has been widely
analyzed but the results are controversial.
Bowden & Huges (1953) found out that m
decreases with the velocity and he explained this
decrease with a higher surface melting under the
blades and thus a better lubrication. De Koning et al.
(2005) found the exact contrary. Despite these
findings, it is common to consider the friction forces
independent on the speed (De Koning, De Groot, &
Van Ingen Schenau, 1992, 2005; De Koning & Van
Ingen Schenau, 2000; Hennekam, 1990).
1.3 Inertia
The inertia acting on the athlete can be written as:
I ¼ mV_ ð6Þ
_
where m [kg] is the mass of the athlete and V[m·s -2
] is
the acceleration. The power that the athlete has to
spend against the inertia in order to reach a certain
speed can be written as the rate of change of the
kinetic and potential energy (De Koning et al., 2005).
dEmcb
PI ¼ ð7Þ
dt
In order to consider all the forces acting against a
skater during its performance, a balance of the forces
acting against the athletes during their motion have
been proposed by (De Koning et al., 2005;
De Koning & Van Ingen Schenau, 2000). In this
power balance equation, the power generated by the
athlete is spent to overcome the three main forces
previously mentioned (drag, friction and inertia):
Pu ¼ PF þ PD þ PI ð8Þ
2 -3
where Pu [kg·m ·s ] is the power generated by the
skater, PF [kg·m2 ·s-3] are the frictional losses
averaged due to the ice/blade friction, PD [kg·m2·s-3]
are the frictional losses averaged due to the drag
In most long distance races, the athlete’s speed
tends to increase in the initial part of the race and it
stabilizes on a constant level for the rest of it.
Focusing the attention on the second part of the race,
it can be postulated that Pf is going to be proportional
to the speed, PI is going to be zero and PD is
proportional to the cube of the speed.
This lead to the fact that, the higher the speed is,
the more relevant the percentage of drag on the total
forces will be.
And thus, the higher the speed is, the more a
reduction in drag is crucial in order to use the power
generated to reach a higher speed.
Considering the example of speed skating, at
10 m/s, the drag is ca. 80% of the total forces acting
on a skater during its motion and it rises up to 90% at
15 m/s (Figure 1).
In order to manipulate the drag acting on the
athlete by using different textiles (which is the main
scope of this work) some simplifications are needed.
The complexity of the geometry of the human body
adds a number of variables which do not give the
possibility to accurately evaluate the effect of the
different textiles. One way to simplify the human
body has been suggested by Hoerner (1965) first and

Figure 1. Influence of drag in speed skating.
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Figure 2. Camera setup and frontal area calculations.
Shanebrook & Jasczak (1974, 1976) later. In their
separate works, they approximated the drag force on
the human body with the help of a model consisting
of series of circular cylinders with different shapes
and inclinations which were used to simulate arms,
legs and trunk and a sphere to simulate the head.
The concept behind this model was to link the
shape of the human body with shapes with known
aerodynamic characteristics.
This assumption was successively adopted by a
number of scientists (Brownlie, 1992; Oggiano,
Sætran, Løset, & Winther, 2007) in order to estimate
the influence of textiles on the total drag of the
athletes and be able to compare the results with
classical literature about bluff bodies aerodynamics
(Achenbach, 1977; Bearman & Harvey, 1993).
Some of the previous studies present in the
literature (Achenbach, 1977; Bearman & Harvey,
1993; Fage & Warsap, 1929) show that roughness is
able to generate turbulence and affect the flow
around the cylinder.
Parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters 225
Already in 1929, Fage & Warsap found out that the
size of the roughness present on a cylinder could affect
its aerodynamic properties stating that a cylinder
could be considered smooth if the excrescences do not
affect the flow around the cylinder itself.
The concept was further elaborated by Prandtl
(1961), who said that the roughness does not affect
the flow if they are completely embedded in the
laminar boundary layer.
However, when characterizing the roughness on
the cylinder surface, not only the size of the
excrescences is important, but also their texture
(shape, distribution, etc).
Different kind of roughness texture and shape have
been studied and applied to cylinders: tripping wires
and separation wires (Alam & Zhoua, 2003; James &
Truong, 1972; Naumann & Quadflieg, 1968),
tripping spheres (Mizuno, 1970), eddy generators
(Joubert & Hoffman, 1962), sand roughness
(Achenbach, 1977), dimples (Bearman & Harvey,
1993). (James & Truong, 1972) found out that the
 226 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran
drag coefficient (cD) could vary by 40% depending on
the type of protrusion used on the cylinder. The data
showed that the protuberance shapes, a trip-wire and
an overlap, are nearly identical in their effect on the
aerodynamic characteristics, and that their effect
depends much more on location than on size.
An even higher drag reduction in terms of cD has
been obtained by Alam & Zhoua (2003) positioning
tripping rods of 5 mm in diameter at 308. At this
angular position of the tripping rods, cD was reduced
by 67%. Farell & Fedeniuk (1988) used wire-gauze
shaped roughness for their experiments. The tests
were carried out on a cylinder with a diameter of
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5.08 cm and steel wire cloths were used as roughness,
in two sizes, with wire diameters 0.165 mm and
0.254 mm leading to a k/Diam ¼ 0.65% and
k/Diam ¼ 1% respectively. A considerable decrease
of the ReTRANS has been found.
Buresti & Launaro (1980) used emery cloth to
simulate the roughness and noticed that the critical
regime could be reduced (and even eliminated)
depending on the roughness size. Their results also
showed that it is not possible to characterize the flow
by means of a Reynolds number based on the size of
the roughness.
Dimpled surfaces (considered as negative rough-
ness) have been proven to be able to lower the cD at
high Re, in the post-critical flow phase being the most
efficient type of roughness in terms of drag reduction.
Experiments carried out by Bearman and Harvey
(1976, 1993) showed how dimples can affect the
aerodynamic properties of spheres (Bearman &
Harvey, 1976) and cylinders (Bearman & Hennekam,
1993).
These results created the substructure which
pushed scientists to investigate possible methods to
reduce the drag on human bodies by optimizing suits
and equipments.
Kyle (1988) and Brownlie (1992) noticed that
loose clothing increase the frontal area of the athlete
leading to an increase of drag of about 40% with the
direct consequence that tight skin suits are highly
recommended in order to lower the drag.
Kyle in particular noticed that a suit two size larger
could increase the drag of 3% on a Nordic skier.
Van Ingen Schenau (1982), already in 1982, found
out that different materials are able to reduce the
drag on the athletes. He noted that a wool suit has
less drag than a lycra suit for speed below 7 m/s while,
for higher speeds, the lycra suit has lower drag and he
explained his results affirming that the rough textile
present in the new suits is able to trip the transition to
turbulent regime of the flow around the athletes. Kyle
(1988) found out that a lycra suit was able to reduce
the drag of a cyclist of ca. 7%. Further experiments
carried out by Brownlie, Gartshore, Mutch, &
Banister (1987) showed that textiles are able to
affect the flow transition on bluff bodies. However, if
fabrics are coated and thus their surface is smooth,
then the roughness will not be enough to induce to
flow transition. The importance of a tight fit has also
been addressed by Brownlie (1992) which found out
that coated Lycra suits are able to keep a tight fit
to the body even when the body is in movement.
Porosity has also been taken into considerations by a
number of authors. Watanabe, Kato, Kamata, &
Ondera (1989) found out that textiles with high
permeability had higher drag than textiles with low
permeability. The same results were presented by
Holden (1988) who justified this increase of drag
noticing that porous materials move the separation
point in the front side of the model and this leads to
higher drag. A third reason for increase of drag is
that the ventilation through porous fabrics traps
the air inside the fabric and it leads to an increase of
the skiers mass. This assumption has also been
confirmed by (Brownlie et al., 1987) which suggested
the use of coated fabrics in order to reduce the
problem. Focusing the attention on speed skating, it
is known that speed skating suits rapidly evolved
during the last few decades, after researchers and
scientists noticed that drag reduction on the athletes
was possible by using different suits. Brownlie (1992)
in his PhD thesis work analyzed the effect of different
textiles. Tests have been carried out on different
dimensions cylinder models and on mannequins.
In his work, Brownlie addressed the problem of
understanding how the textiles roughness can be
expressed. His final finding was that skin suits can
give high advantage in terms of performances due to
the lower drag.
A list of the milestone changes in terms of speed
skating apparel has been given by (Kuper & Sterken,
2002):
1976 – Skin suits are introduced by Krienbühl.
1998 – Dutch team used zig-zag stripes.
2000 – Nike introduced the skin swift suit with
rough patches on legs and arms.
In the same work, they analyzed the effect of speed
skating suits on speed skating performances basing
their work on the data collected during the Olympic
Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, focusing the
attention on the new Nike suit with rough patches on
the arms and legs.
Their main findings were that for men there was a
significant positive contribution to skating speed of
the Nike suit for most distances. For women, a
significant positive contribution of the Nike suit was
found especially for the longer distances (1500 m or
more), while for the other suits they did not do not
find any positive contribution.

These results are somehow matching with what
Brownlie found in 1992 where he compared the aver-
age change in times between the skaters’ Salt Lake City
performances and their previous pre Salt Lake City
personal bests (Brownlie, 1992) and he found out that
the Nike swift suit used by the USA team and by the
Dutch team were respectively 0.91% and 0.93% faster.
In a successive study, Kuper & Sterken (2008)
stated that the suits, even if they give an advantage to
the skaters in terms of drag reduction, do not affect
the final performance.
The aim of the present study is to first understand
which body parts counts most on the total drag of an
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athletes and what kind of textiles should cover these
parts in order to reach a considerable drag reduction.
In order to do that, drag measurements on a real size
mannequin and on cylinders have been carried out
and a number of parameters which are able to affect
the drag acting on a skater have been analyzed.
2. Experimental apparatus and methods
The tests carried out had the goal to understand how
the drag acting on an athlete is distributed on the
different body parts and successively figure out what
kind of textile would help in order to minimize the
drag on each body part. All the tests have been
carried out in the NTNU wind tunnel. The test
section of the wind tunnel is 12.5 m long, 1.8 m high,
and 2.7 m wide. The wind tunnel is equipped with a
220 kW fan that can produce a variation of speeds
between 0.5 – 30 m·s-1.
The balance used (Carl Schenck AG) is a six com-
ponent balance capable to measure the three forces
and the three momentums around the three axes.
The first part of the experiments was focused on
measuring how much each body part of a skater
counts on the total drag. A real size mannequin
(170 cm tall and 75 kg heavy) was used for the
experiments. The mannequin has fully adjustable
joints. The posture chosen for the mannequin was
derived from previous experiments carried out by
Van Ingen Schenau (1982).
Defining u0 [8] as the angle between the upper and
lower leg (sometimes called knee angle) and u1 [8] as
the angle between the trunk and the horizon,
u0 ¼ 1108and u1 ¼ 158 where chosen for the tests.
From this position, an adjustment has been done.
The right arm has been kept in a vertical position in
order to simulate the skater’s posture in a curve.
The mannequin was connected to the force
balance with a support placed on the back.
The frontal area (Ap [m2]) was calculated based on
two digital photos taken for each round of
experiments.
The photos were taken respectively from the front
and from behind.
Parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters 227
Figure 3. The three textiles used. The smooth cylinder is marked
with the white color.
In the following part Af [m2] refers to the images
taken from the front and Ab [m2] to the photos taken
from behind. The setup used in order to acquire the
pictures used to calculate the frontal area is shown in
Figure 3.
The camera was mounted on a locked tripod which
was removed from the test section before each round
of experiments and two pictures, one from the front
and one from behind where taken.
The pictures were then imported into a CAD
program (AutoCAD Electrical 2007), and for each
image an outline around the mannequin was drawn,
and the area within the ACAD-outline was
measured. However, the Area value measured with
Autocad is in number of pixels per cm and it needed
to be converted before it could be read out. Using a
correlation function G between a given reference
length set in AutoCAD hCAD and a the physically
measured value hreal [m] (placed in the back side of
the pole used as a support for the mannequin), the
frontal area Ap could then be measured using the
following formulas
Af ¼ G2f
AfCAD ð9Þ
Ab ¼ G2b
AbCAD ð10Þ
where Gf ¼ hfreal/hfCAD and Gb ¼ hbreal/hbCAD.
The reference lengths hfreal [m] and hbreal [m] were
both 200 mm long and measured on the support for
the mannequin (Figure 2).
Since the reference length (hreal was placed behind
the mannequin was Af , calculated with Equation 9,
larger than the actual area Ap, and Ab, calculated with
Equation 10, smaller than A (Figure 2).
The frontal area Ap calculated from the outline
curve was considered to be in the vertical plane at
distance l3 [m] from the support centerline.
In the scheme shown in Figure 2 the frontal area Ap
is expressed as a function of Af , Ab (measured from
the pictures acquired and imported in AutoCAD)
and the distances lf and ld (which are characteristics
of the photo setup).
The area Ap can be defined as:

2
l f 2 l 3 þ d2
A¼
Af ð11Þ
lf
 228 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran

And was 12 m·-1 (Van Ingen Schenau, De Groot, & De

2 Boer, 1985) and the suit used for the test was a
l b þ l 3 þ d2
A¼
Ab ð12Þ speed-skating suit made of a uniform Lycra textile
lb which resulted to give a constant cD value at different
thus speed values.

2
2 The lower legs (calf) resulted to count up to ca.
l f 2 l 3 þ d2 l b þ l 3 þ d2 32% of the total drag acting on the mannequin.

Af ¼
Ab ð13Þ
lf lb This is particularly important because the lower
legs are the only part of the body which is almost
and then
"
# always perpendicular to the air flow in many
2
2
1 l f 2 l 3 þ d2 l b þ l 3 þ d2 disciplines. However, the right calf resulted to have
Ap ¼
Af þ
Ab a lower influence on the total drag. This might be due
2 lf lb
to the right arm of the mannequin which was
ð14Þ
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vertically placed close to the right leg and was then

In order to evaluate the contribution of each body
part to the total drag, different body parts were
removed from the mannequin in each test. The
mannequin was dressed with a standard reference
suit made of a single uniform textile. The area
measurements were acquired during each round of
measurements.
In order to understand how different textiles acts
on different body parts, additional tests were carried
out on cylinders and the main parameters (VTRANS
and cDMIN) which characterize a cD -speed curve for a
cylinder were derived.
Three different textiles with different roughness
have been used. To determine the roughness
coefficient k [mm], a model based on length between
the dimples present in the textiles and dimples depth
has been used (Oggiano et al., 2007).
k can be defined as:
pffiffiffiffiffiffi
k ¼ wd ð15Þ
where w [m] is the distance between two dimples and
d [m] is the depth of the dimples
3. Results
3.1 Body parts
Ten different tests were carried out removing
different body parts in each test. The speed chosen
shielding it. Looking at the area reduction, it can be
seen that right calf and left calf have the same frontal
surface. The same effect can be noticed when
comparing left and right thighs: the left thigh counts
more on the total drag than the right thigh but they
obviously have the same frontal area.
A large difference can be noticed from the data
relative to the left and right arm. This is due to the
fact that the right arm was placed in a vertical
position in order to simulate the posture of the skater
in a curve. With this configuration, the right arm
counts up to 21% of the total drag while the left arm,
which is attached to the body, counts up to 3%.
The head does not have a high influence on the
total drag and it counts only up to 3%. The
turbulence trigger strips placed on the forehead by
many speed skating suits producers in order to
reduce the drag, will then have a negligible effect on
the total count.
3.2 Textiles
3.2.1 Yawed cylinder test. The tests have carried out on
a 20 cm diameter cylinder which horizontally
mounted in the wind tunnel and connected to the
force balance with a support.
Three different textiles have been tested and
compared with a smooth cylinder. cD-speed for five

Table I. Drag, Area, cD and cD –A values measured.

Test Round D [N] Ap [m 2] cD [–] cDA [m 2]

1 Full body (Round 1) 25.51 0.339 0.70 0.24

2 Full body (Round 2) 24.96 0.340 0.69 0.24
- Average Round 1 and Round 2 25.24 0.339 0.70 0.24
3 Left calf removed 20.59 0.303 0.64 0.19
4 Right calf removed 21.71 0.300 0.67 0.20
5 Both calf removed 16.81 0.265 0.60 0.16
6 Both calf and left thigh removed 14.03 0.233 0.57 0.13
7 Left foot removed 18.74 0.269 0.66 0.18
8 Left arm removed 24.50 0.327 0.71 0.23
9 Right arm removed 19.90 0.305 0.62 0.19
10 Head removed 24.48 0.327 0.71 0.23
 Parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters 229

Table II. Influence of each body part on the total drag. (1) placed on a model with high yaw angle (a . 308)
Calculated by the difference in drag between the left-lay removed does not give advantage in terms of drag reduction
and left foot removed. (2) Calculated by the difference in drag
between two-post removed and the left thigh and removed – both
but it increase the total drag.
places. For lower values of a (a , 208) there is an
advantage in using rougher textiles so that transition
Body part Drag reduction [%] Ap reduction [%] can be shifted at lower speed.
Left calf 18.4 10..7 Considering the roughness k, results show that,
Right calf 13.9 11.6 while For a ¼ 408 a smooth texture on the cylinder
Left thigh (1) 11.0 9.5 permits to obtain a lower drag.
Left thigh (2) 7.3 10.2 Results are summarized in Figure 4 where it can be
Right thigh – –
Left arm 2.9 3.8
seen that for a range of speed between 10 and 16 m/s
Right arm 21.1 10.3 the two roughest textiles tested (T2 and T3) are
Head 3.0 3.7 effective in order to reduce the drag but only for
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Upper body 18.7
different yaw angles a [8] (from a ¼ 08 to a ¼ 458
have been acquired and from them the parameters
which define the transition (VTRANS and cDMIN) have
been correlated with the yaw angle a. Results show
that yaw angle a affects cD-speed curves. When the
yaw angle a increases, the drag crisis and the
consequent drag reduction gets smaller for all the
textiles tested.
While for a ¼ 08 a noticeable difference between
the textile is shown and the rough textiles reduce the
drag in the cylinder model, for a ¼ 458 (Figure 4)
textiles have the opposite effect (they increase the
drag) leading to the conclusion that a rough textile
41.0 a , 308. From a speed range between 10 and 13 m/s,
the cylinder covered with T3 is the one with the
lowest drag, while at higher speeds (between 14 and
16 m/s) T2 is able to lower the drag around the
cylinder. These results were expected and they are in
good agreement with the results presented in a
previous work (Oggiano et al., 2007)
The plot in Figure 5(b) shows the dependence of
cDMIN from the yaw angle a. A clear decrease in the
value of cDMIN can be noticed for all the textiles
tested. A parabolic correlation of the type:
C DMIN ¼ a
a 2 þ b
a þ c ð16Þ
was found to interpolate the limited number of data
available with good R2 values.

Figure 4. Resuming graph for the yawed cylinder test. In this figure the textile with the lowest drag is marked by a color referring to Figure 3.

Figure 5. (a) Correlation between VTRANS and Yaw angle a. (b) Correlation between cDMIN and Yaw angle a.
 230 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran

The values of a, b and c and R2 respectively for T1,
T2 and T3 are:
T1: a ¼ –0.0003, b ¼ –0.0002 and c ¼ 0.8211
with an R2 ¼ 0,9912
T2: a ¼ –0.0003, b ¼ –0,0009 and c ¼ 0.7670
with an R2 ¼ 0.9958
T3: a ¼ –0.0002, b ¼ –0,0013 and c ¼ 0.7046
with an R2 ¼ 0.9985
The roughness parameter k influences the curves
acting on the curvature parameter b and on the
parameter c which defines the intersection of each
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placed in the wind tunnel and connected to the
balance with a support.
From the tests carried out, the diameter of the
cylinder clearly influences VTRANS and CDMIN.
Figure 7(a) shows VTRANS and Diam are linearly
correlated and Figure7(b) shows the same behavior
for CDMIN and Diam.
These linear correlations can be expressed in the
form:
V TRANS ¼ d · Diam þ e ð17Þ
between VTRANS and the cylinder diameter (Diam)
and in the form:

curve with the cDMIN axis thus the cDMIN value for
C DMIN ¼ f · Diam þ g ð18Þ
a ¼ 08.
A simple correlation shows that the higher k is between cDMIN and the cylinder diameter (Diam)
(rougher textile), the lower are the values of b and c The values for d, e, f and g are reported for the
while a is not clearly affected. three textiles tested:
VTRANS is not strongly affected by the yaw angle a
(Figure 5(a)). However, the roughness parameter k T1: d ¼ 0.5667, e ¼ 3.7667
influences VTRANS at any yaw angle a. It can be then T2: d ¼ 0.3625, e ¼ 4.7425 (R2 ¼ 0.9864)
postulated that VTRANS is determined by the type of T3: d ¼ 0.1993, e ¼ 5.8804 (R2 ¼ 0.9967)
textile used but not by the yaw angle a. T1: f ¼ 0.0056, g ¼ 0.5389
T2: f ¼ 0.0091, g ¼ 0.5045 (R2 ¼ 0.9375)
T3: f ¼ 0.0125, g ¼ 0.4959 (R2 ¼ 0.9852)
3.2.2 Different diameter cylinder test. For what concerns
the size, experiments on different sizes cylinders have The roughness coefficient k influences all the
been carried out (11, 20 and 31 cm diameter). parameters (d,e,f and g). A higher k leads to a
The setup was similar to the one used for the yaw lower VTRANS for the same diameter and to a higher
angle experiment: the cylinders were horizontally cDMIN.

Figure 6. (a) Influence of cylinder diameter on VTRANS. (b) Influence of cylinder diameter on cDMIN

Figure 7. Resuming graph for the different diameter cylinder. In this figure the textile with the lowest drag is marked by a color referring to
Figure 3.

Figure 8. Resuming graph for the side by side cylinder test. In this figure the textile with the lowest drag is marked by a color referring to
Figure 3.
The parameters d and f which represent the
angular coefficients of the linear correlation are
strongly affected by k.
The higher k is, the lower is f. This correlation
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shows that the roughness parameter k is somehow
dependent on the diameter.
The R2 values reported are affected by the low
number of points present in the curve.
3.2.3 Side by side. A third important parameter which
needs to be taken in consideration is the distance
between the legs. The legs of the athletes constantly
vary their distance during a competition and
depending on the discipline.
The experiments have been then carried out on a
model consisting of two vertical cylinders (placed
side by side) with variable distance between them.
From the experiments carried out results show
that there is a correlation between L [cm] and the
aerodynamic properties of the textiles.
When L increases, both parameters (VTRANS and
cDMIN) decrease (Figure 9). However, while cDMIN
decrease slowly while L increases, VTRANS drops
from passing from L /Diam ¼ 1 to L /Diam ¼ 2 for
both T2 and T3.
For low speed (from 6 to 18 m·s-1), T3 is the model
with the lowest drag while for V . 18 m·s-1 the
model T2 is the one with the lowest aerodynamic
resistance. This trend is confirmed when L /Diam
Figure 9. (a) Influence of L/Diam on cDMIN. (b) Influence of L/Diam on VTRANS.
Parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters 231
increases, however, for L /Diam ¼ 4 T3 has lower
drag than T2 only until the speed is 16 m·s-1.
An exponential correlation of the type

i
L
V TRANS ¼ h
ð19Þ
Diam
was found to correlate VTRANS with L/Diam. The
values of h and I found for the different textiles are:
T1: –
T2: h ¼ 21.316, i ¼ –0.271 (R2 ¼ 0.92623)
T3: h ¼ 20.462, i ¼ –0.495 (R2 ¼ 0,8925)
In this test the textile the transitional speed VTRANS
has not been reached with the textile T1.
If for L /Diam ¼ 1 the advantage of using rougher
patterns [T2, T3] to shift the transition at lower
speed is almost negligible, already for L /Diam ¼ 2
the trend changes and a considerable gain in terms of
drag reduction can be noticed.
4. Discussion
4.1 Body parts
From the test carried out in order to evaluate how
each body part influences the total drag of a speed
skater, some results needs to be discussed and
analyzed.
Lower legs and calf counts up to 32% of the total
drag when the skater is in the position tested. Due to
 232 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran
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Figure 10. Typical cD-speed curve for a cylinder.
anthropometrical and biomechanical reasons, the
frontal area exposed to the incoming wind relative to
the lower legs cannot be subjected to large
modifications when the athlete is in a tuck position.
However, this frontal area will surely vary during
the pushing phase where only one foot is in contact
with the ground limiting these results to a static
posture.
The upper body, which counts up to 41% on the
total frontal area, counts only up to 18.7% on the
total drag. This discrepancy between the two values is
due to the fact that the upper body was placed with a
small angle between the trunk and the horizon
u1 ¼ 158 (Van Ingen Schenau, 1982).
The frontal area data measured are in agreement
with the data measured by Van Ingen Schenau
(1982). He measured a frontal area Ap [m2] on six
athletes which was varying from 0.23 m2 to 0.33 m2
and cD values varying from 0.79 to 0.99. The results
from this experiments show a slightly higher frontal
area and a lower cD but this can be due to the fact
that the model was a mannequin and not a real
person.
4.2 Textiles
An accurate analysis of a typical cD-speed curve for
cylinders is relevant in order to be able to evaluate the
performances of each textile. In literature these
curves are often represented as cD-Re where Re is a
non dimensional parameter called Reynolds number
and it is defined as:
VDiam
Re ¼ ð20Þ
n turbulent the wake is formed by two-bubble flow
where V [m/s] is the speed, Diam [m] is the diameter
of the cylinder and v [m2/s] is the kinematic viscosity
of the fluid. However, a correlation between textile
properties, drag and speed is more useful for practical
purposes. The flow around circular cylinders is
characterized by the occurrence of transitions
marked by abrupt changes in mean flow parameters.
It is known that the occurrence of laminar
separation-turbulent reattachment bubbles is
responsible for the low values of the drag coefficient
(cD) which marks the end of the lower or critical
transition.
The cD -speed curve can be divided into three main
regions:
. Pre critical zone [V , V1]: the boundary layer
around the cylinder is laminar, the cD is constant
and its value is around 1,1. It is characterized by
symmetric pressure distributions, a gradual but
substantial decrease in cD.
. Critical zone [V1 , V , V2]: the flow is in
transition from laminar to turbulent regime and
cD drops from cDPRE to cDMIN. It is marked by
intense flow oscillations due to formation and
bursting of a single bubble on one or the other side
of the cylinder, first intermittently on either side
then oscillating from side to side. During this
phase the cD suddenly drops and it reaches its
minimum value. The size of the drop from cDPRE
to cDMIN depends on a number of parameters
including roughness type, roughness shape, and
diameter of the cylinder. A specific velocity
(VTRANS) has been defined in order to give an
approximate description of where transition
occurs and it is defined as the velocity where the
c D curve has gone through half its drop.
A simplified model of the critical zone permits to
define the transition with VTRANS and cDMIN.
. Post critical zone: [V . V2]: the flow is fully
pattern. In this phase the cD slowly increases.
Speed is then the mean factor which needs to be
considered when trying to lower the drag acting on an
athlete by using rough textiles.

Other factor needs to be considered when
optimizing a speed skating suit.
During a speed skating race, the body of the
athletes assumes different positions. The air flow will
then invest the different body parts with a certain
angle which depends on a large number of factors.
However, the chances to have a perfectly perpen-
dicular air flow are very low. It is then important to
evaluate the effect of the side wind on the athlete’s
body and try to understand how different textiles
affect the aerodynamic properties.
The results shown in Figure 6(b) show the
dependence of cDMIN from the yaw angle a. A clear
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decrease in the value of cDMIN can be noticed for all
the textiles tested. The yaw angle also influences
VTRANS which slowly decreases while a increases for
all the different textiles tested (Figure 6(a)).
The physical meaning behind these results is known
and it can be explained. First of all, the cross section of
a yawed circular cylinder is elliptical. A second
interesting fact is that the free stream velocity has two
components. One normal component called VN and
one parallel component celled VT VN has a major
effect on the flow compared to VT (Zdravkovich,
1997) and it decreases when the angle a increases.
Since only the dependence on the free stream velocity
V has been considered, a decrease in drag due to the
decrease of VN should then be expected.
When choosing what kind of textiles should be
placed on the different body parts of an athlete, high
attention to the position of each body part respect to
the free stream should be put. For instance the trunk
of the speed skater is often inclined more than 458
and then, the use of rough textiles would be non
recommended. On the other hand, the wind stream
often hits perpendicularly legs, arms and shoulders.
In these body parts it could be useful and
advantageous to use rough textiles.
When testing cylinders with different sizes, results
show that a combined effect of roughness and change
in diameter affects the aerodynamic properties of the
cylinder. The effect of roughness has been exten-
sively covered in the past (Achenbach, 1964; Bear-
man & Harvey, 1993; Fage & Warsap, 1929; Oggiano
et al., 2007) and there is a clear agreement on the fact
that almost any kind of surface roughness is able to
shift the transition to turbulent regime at lower speed
with a consequent drop in terms of cD.
However, often the roughness coefficient k and the
diameter of the cylinder Diam are linked together in a
single parameter called roughness factor r which can
be written as:
k
r¼ ð21Þ
Diam
In the present work, the parameter r has not been
considered but the attention has been focused on
Parameters affecting drag force on speed skaters 233
how each textile acts on cylinders with different
diameters Diam. The results show that the diameter
affects VTRANS and cDMIN when the cylinder is
covered with the same textile. An increase in
diameter shifts the VTRANS to a higher value and
the same happens for cDMIN (Figure 5).
This lead to the fact that, for the largest diameter
cylinder tested (31 cm), if low drag is needed, it is
convenient to use smoother surfaces than the one
used for the smaller diameter (11 cm).
A practical use of this findings could be that body
parts with lager diameter (trunk, thighs) requires a
smoother textile than body parts with smaller
diameter (calfs, arms) in order to minimize the
total drag.
Also in this case, the speed plays an important role.
It can be seen from Figure 7 that at lower speed it is
always beneficial to use the roughest of the textiles
tested (T3) while when the speed increases (V . 15
m·s-1) the use of T3 would negatively influence the
drag if compared with a smoother textile.
A clear picture of the sizes and speeds is then
crucial in order to be able to optimize the drag.
The last test carried out on side by side cylinders
showed that the distance between the cylinder
models clearly affect the drag.
When the cylinders are too close together, a higher
cD value has been measured.
This behavior has been previously analyzed by
(Zdravkovich, 1997) who showed that two cylinders
in a side by side configuration behaves differently
depending on the distance between them.
If the cylinders are too close together they behave
as a single cylinder with higher diameter leading to a
larger wake and thus higher drag.
In order to effectively use the positive effect given
by rough textiles athletes should then keep a
gap between their legs and this gap should be large
enough in order to achieve the drop in cD and
consequently reduce the drag.
5. Conclusions
On a speed skater in a static skating position, the
lower legs counts up to 1/3 of the total drag acting its
body in the present test. A large part of the drag was
also given by the right arm which was positioned
vertically to simulate the athlete posture during the
curve.
Rough textiles have been proven to influence the
drag on cylinders. However, the effect that the fabrics
have on the aerodynamic parameters has been
demonstrated to be correlated to some geometrical
aspects. The main outcomes of this study are:
. Rough textiles are able to shift the transition at
lower speed only for low yaw angles.
 234 Luca Oggiano and Lars Roar SÆtran
. Rough textiles are able to shift the transition on a
side by side cylinder model at lower speed only if
the distance between the cylinders is two times
larger than the cylinders diameter
. The effect of rough textiles on cylinders is higher if
the cylinder diameter is smaller.
From the experiments carried out, it is possible to
define a strategy in order to optimize the type of
textiles on a speed skating suit in order to reduce the
drag acting on a speed skater.
Acknowledgements
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The authors would like to acknowledge the
Norwegian Olympic committee for funding the
project and in particular Arne Lier, Sveinung Løset
and Kirsti Biseth (who kindly provided the picture
for the table of contents).
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