Smart Force-Measuring Ice Skating Blade

When figure skaters land from a leap, they can experience five to eight times their body weight. However, a fully accurate picture of the impact their leaps put on their ankles and feet has until now been elusive. This is because on-ice measurements of the forces associated with figure skating are difficult to record due to the complexity of the sport and not wanting to interfere with the skater during their jumps. The only way to observe indirect measures of the force figures skaters feel has been to have them jump from a box onto a force plate in a lab.

To get the hard data, BYU professors Sarah Ridge and Steven Charles teamed up with professor Deb King of Ithaca College in New York to develop a method of measuring forces directly from the skate's blade. The team created a device that attaches to ice skates and measures the compressive forces coming from each impact. The new device lets the researchers observe the real impact on the ice by using strain gages to record that compression, storing the data on the boot, and calculating forces from the data. For the specially designed blade, the team utilized American-made strain gages from VPG's Micro-Measurements group.

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