Ceramic Luge runners

[Scotty11]

I'm a member of the US luge team. As the Olympics come up next year we are looking for a new type of material for our runners. If you're not familiar with luge it's a sport measured to the thousandth of a second (.000). The slider rides down an iced track which is chilled from 26 degrees to -20 degrees F depending on the temp. outside. The slider goes around banked corners where he/she and the sled will reach g forces up to 5g's. In that 5 g corner the 2 runners are contacting the ice with 2572.5N (newtons) a piece with a total of 5145N total. Obviously that's a lot of force which is creating a great amount of friction which is slowing us down. What we're looking for is a material we could put on our runners or a new material runner in order to reduce the co efficient of friction with the ice. What we do now is build an edge on our runners which adds grip but also adds friction because more runner is touching the ice. We make a fine balance between grip and friction so they're right on the edge. Another thing that would be helpful is a material that would heat up on the way down the track in order to create a thin layer of water which would reduce friction.

If you have any other ideas feel free to post them.

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

[tomwalz]

We looked into this about four years ago for someone from the Olympic team. Nothing ever came of it.

What do the regulations say about the runners? Isn’t there something about not using anything on the runners?

If you could past a link to the regulations it would help.

Tom


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

 

[RPstress]

I thought that the idea behind skates and runners was that the very high pressure under a sharp runner was enough to melt the ice locally and form a water-lubricated contact. Is this not the case?

However, if what you want is a reasonably strong low friction material then fibre reinforced PTFE or similar springs to mind.

If this is too soft and flexible then there are metallic offerings with embedded PTFE particles and/or fibers which greatly lower friction. Some makers of low friction bearings which must run dry have offerings of metal with embedded PTFE, etc. These are often copper or bronze based.

If you're permitted a coating then a fluoropolymer coating should help (there're more fluoropolymers than just PTFE out there).

 

[EdStainless]

The advantage of using a toughened zirconia (TTZ TPZ) is that you would have the hardness and edge holding properties of high strength steel, and no worry about small amounts of corrosion roughening the surface.
These materials are plenty tough for the service.
Don't use alumina.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Plymouth Tube

 

[Scotty11]

RPstress, Thanks for your response. You are correct we try and get that thin layer of water but we're still worried that the material we use now, although it creates that water layer, still is creating too much friction.

We are allowed to coat our steels with what ever we want we currently file the steels to get out any nicks or deficiencies then we use ascending sand paper grits from 180-2500 after that we polish them off with a diamond paste 5 to .5 micron which leaves a smooth surface on the edge.

RPstress, thanks for your suggestion on the fluoropolymer coating I haven't done any research on what types there are, or what companies sell them. But off hand do you know of any companies that would sell this?

EdStainless, Thanks for your response on the toughened zirconia You're the second person to suggest this so this is something that is going to looked at more.

Thanks to all and more suggestions are always welcome.

 

[tomwalz]

There are metal alloys with a much higher lubricity than steel.

We sell one of them as Talonite for knives. However it is about $12,000 for a 22" x 44" sheet.

tom

Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.