Proceedings of the
International Conference on Mechanical Engineering 2009
(ICME2009) 26- 28 December 2009, Dhaka, Bangladesh

ICME09-FM-20

AERODYNAMICS OF TEXTILES FOR ELITE CYCLIST

Harun Chowdhury1, Firoz Alam1, David Mainwaring2, Jordi Beneyto-Ferre2, Margaret Tate2,
Dorothy Forster2 and Aleksandar Subic1
1School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Australia
2School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT

Aerodynamic properties play a significant role in the textiles across a wide range of sports including cycling, skiing, bobsleigh, and speed skating. Considerations in this aerodynamic performance include the textile weave or knit, seam and fastener placement and air permeability. Elite competition usually involves very short winning time margins in events that often have much longer timescales, making aerodynamic resistance and its associated energy loss during the event significant in the outcome. In fact, a two fold increase in athlete velocity results in a fourfold increase in the drag force needing to be overcome. This paper describes the impact of textile surface employing a standard cylindrical arrangement in wind tunnel studies to provide precise data on aerodynamic drag and lift as a function of athlete’s body positions together with garment seam placement and apply these optimized data to cycling apparel design for elite cyclist.
 

Keywords: Wind Tunnel Testing, Drag, Lift, Aerodynamic, Cycling, Fabric.

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