{"id":688,"date":"2010-02-22T10:02:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.org\/olympic-skeleton-racers-comeback-trail-ran-through-solidworks"},"modified":"2010-02-22T10:02:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:02:27","slug":"olympic-skeleton-racers-comeback-trail-ran-through-solidworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2010\/02\/olympic-skeleton-racers-comeback-trail-ran-through-solidworks.html","title":{"rendered":"Olympic skeleton racer’s comeback trail ran through SolidWorks"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/p>\n

Skeleton
\nsleds aren\u2019t the kind of item you pick up at the local Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods.
\nSleds have to respond precisely to subtle body shifts that racers use to steer
\nthem around sharp curves as the racers shoot down icy tracks at up to 80 miles
\nper hour, face-first, with their arms clamped to their sides. Racers like 2005
\nWorld Cup champion and  <\/p>\n

U.S.Olympic team members such as Noelle Pikus-Pace<\/a> rely on customized skeleton sleds to
\nremain competitive. Pikus-Pace was left in the lurch when her sleds were damaged in late 2009, on the doorstep of the Vancouver
\nOlympics. Or rather, she would have been if her husband, Janson Pace,
\nwasn\u2019t an industrial designer for a fabrication shop that produces a broad
\narray of customized industrial metal products. Using SolidWorks CAD software as
\nthe palette for his ideas, Janson Pace and his co-workers designed a new skeleton from the
\nground up in less time (and for tens of thousands of dollars less) than it
\nusually takes to create one of the highly specialized sleds. Great news for an athlete whose dreams for the Turin games four years ago were dashed when a runaway bobsled ran into her, snapping her leg in two.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith SolidWorks, we were able to predict a lot of results that
\notherwise would have taken years of trial and error,\u201d said Janson Pace.
\n\u201cSolidWorks Simulation let us test the sled\u2019s strength, the loads it
\nwould have to bear, and the right materials to use so it wouldn\u2019t
\nbuckle or deform. We modeled all the parts in SolidWorks, did the
\nsimulations, then modified them. The first physical model we produced
\nfit together so well \u2013 because of SolidWorks\u2019 ability to model parts
\nproperly and produce accurate drawings for the machine shop \u2013 that it
\nwas ready for Noelle to use. We didn\u2019t have to prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result of NuQuest\u2019s innovation is a skeleton sled that meets
\nOlympic requirements but departs from many sled design orthodoxies,
\nPace said. Skeleton racing is outwardly similar to the luge, except
\nracers go down the tracks face-first instead of feet first. Skeleton sleds<\/a>
\nconsist of a fiberglass \u201cpod,\u201d metal chassis and two \u201crunners,\u201d or
\nblades. Most sleds are welded together, but the NuQuest sled is bolted.
\nThat makes it easier to switch out damaged or malfunctioning parts
\nwithout subjecting the sled\u2019s frame to heating and deforming.
\nSolidWorks also enabled NuQuest to experiment with different materials
\nto make the sled faster, where international competitions\u2019 rules
\nallowed.<\/p>\n

NuQuest produced the sled in four months, which is years less than
\nit usually takes to perfect a new design. NuQuest co-owner Troy
\nBeckstead estimated that SolidWorks Simulation saved the company \u201ctens
\nof thousands of dollars\u201d in development costs. Pikus-Pace will use the
\nskeleton sled at the Vancouver Olympics<\/a>. She was the first American woman to win the skeleton racing World Cup, and also won world championships in 2007.<\/p>\n

Noelle and her SolidWorks-designed sled took to the track two days ago and came in fourth, missing out on the bronze by a mere tenth of a second.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mike McGrail is a writer at public
\nrelations firm Beaupre, and spends a lot of time talking to SolidWorks
\ncustomers. He'll be contributing from time to time with interesting
\nstories and updates from SolidWorks customers around the world.<\/span><\/em>
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/st1:country><\/st1:place><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skeleton sleds aren\u2019t the kind of item you pick up at the local Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods. Sleds have to respond precisely to subtle body shifts that racers use to steer them around sharp curves as the racers shoot down icy<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[643,679,19],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solidworks","tag-olympics","tag-skeleton-racing","tag-solidworks-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}