KERS in skis??

Oreos

Oreos

Active member
Just watching 'Ski Sunday' (british ski program) and they sad that Didier Cuche has had a Kenetic Energy Recovery System implanted into his skis, behind the bindings to be specific.
I know they use this in F1 but how the frick would it work on skis?? any ideas?
 
More importantly, what would the recovered energy be used for? Using anything other than gravity as propulsion is illegal, surely? And there is nothing else that requires power

Unless it is a bid to make Didier Cuche the first carbon neutral skier?
 
well i suppose it could somehow store energy lost in turns but i don't understand how it would help to accelerate in the gliding or straight sections.
 
I suspect they are using piezoelectric material in the body of the ski's. This is a material that can be moved using an electric current or works the other way round - so an electric current is generated by movement.

If the flex in the skies generates a current then that current can be used to tailor the skies rigidity. So a fully charged ski would be able to 'power' the piezoelectric material to keep the whole ski rigid, maybe when he wants or maybe it is automatic.
 
We heard that in our house too and all called bullshit on it. I reckon its a marketing ploy to call something fairly ordinary by a 'race-car' term.
However I do like that explanation above about piezo-electrickery
 
The only thing I can think of is that it may be for vibration damping? Seen this in a few skis/boards over the years.

Vibrations in the skis are turned into elctric power (piezo thing) which powers LEDs in the skis, which dissipate the power generated so the vibrations do not transfer so much to the skier.

Used to have this in an k2 electra snowboard I had.
 
I had a good google, waaaay too much time on my hands.
The idea is to use piezo electric fibres to convert energy in the ski to electrical energy and then instead of dissipating it through LEDs like K2 did with skis/boards a while back, to store that energy up and release it back into the ski as you exit a turn to power you out.
Interesting...
 
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