Thursday, September 27, 2007

Electric Skates?

Buh?

I'm not quite sure how this would work, though there must be something to it if speed skating and bobsledding have already gone out of their way to ban the heating of blades.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but his comment about the Titanic made me laugh out loud. Prophetic?

Anonymous said...

Let's see.... 36 D-1 players with heated blades over 60 minutes on the first night of series. Why am I picturing chicken scratches gouging all over the ice sheet for the saturday game. Just think about how many divets there would be. Nice idea, but rinks all over place are getting complaints about the ice surface thus would just make a lot lot lot worse. And what about standing for a long period of time?? Will the ice gradually melt under your skates!!

Anonymous said...

Friction from the metal rubbing against the ice causes it to melt. The water formed helps lubricate and reduce friction along the blade. Thus having a warmed blade might increase a players speed and allow them to glide longer and use less energy.

At most the skates will be kept a few degrees above zero. This isn't going to be like droping thermite on the ice surface. I can't believe that these are going to cause significant additional damage to a sheet of ice. The atmospheric conditions inside the rink will still be the dominate factor. The thermal conductivity of the metal will limit the temperature at the skate ice edge.

Marc Foster said...

It's not friction which melts the ice, it's the intense pressure caused by the weight being distributed over the tiny area covered by the blades.

colin said...

Intense pressure = great normal force = friction

MeanEgirl said...

Interesting idea. I wonder if these things actually get bigger if there would be any NCAA regulations against them.

Anonymous said...

I realized as sood as I posted that someone would point out that pressue was a major factor in melting the ice. The more important point is that you skate on a small layer of water between the skate blade and the bulk ice sheet.