This section on wind drag is motivated by its need for speedskating technique analysis. So Far I have
not located actual data for speedskaters so I will use cycling data. The photo below shows
laminar air flow around an olympic cyclist.
The data below is for a cyclist in a similar position
although the arm position varies.
The graph on the left above is from work by
Michael J. Flanagan, Ph.D. at the University of Dayton Research Institute
[Wind drag at U. Dayton is here].
Posture 1 is for the case where the cyclist has his arms pointed toward the center and forward whereas
in posture 3 his arms are on the outside L-R edges of the handlebars. Interestingly, when his arms are
toward the outside the drag is less than when they point to the center. One would assume exactly the opposite.
The graph on the right is from work by Christian Starkjohann.
[Starkjohann drag-velocity data is here].
Starkjohann's data yields the drag vs. velocity relationship. He finds that for all cases he examined
that the drag varies as velocity squared. The reader is referred to the link above for exact drag
coefficients.
It is noteworthy that some of the drag assumptions made in the SpeedSkating Times articles (which I would have
assumed correct) are not borne out by the data. The authors of the data reported here admit that the subject is sufficiently
complex that there is still plenty to be learned however.
In the next chapter of this analysis I plan to examine the predictions for improved speedskating velocity
which could follow from the drag data.
