Materials science of skis

treesmann

treesmann

Active member
i have a 5 page paper for cheam and i chose to write about the materials in a ski. if anyone has ever done this, give me some sources or your paper. thanks
 
well, theres alot you could talk about. a

for one, you can talk about epoxy. theres alot you can talk about, the different characteristics of hardeners, resins, heat reactions, blah blah blah.

you can also talk about flame treating. this is the process used to set the surfaces of UHMWPE and other plastics for epoxy bonding. its a VERY intricate science, theres a ton you could talk about there.

i suppose you could also discuss plastic forming techniques, extrusion and sintered.

the steel edges and metal treating techniques would be interesting.

those are pretty much the only areas of ski construction that have legit chemistry applications. as for sources, come on, do your own damn HW.
 
I agree on all counts...

and good luck... seriously... I was completely hopeless in chemistry, once I got 1/20 on a chemistry quiz. really sad.

um, but check out rubber strips binding the wood core to the metal edges. I heard (and this source is not reliable so check to verify) that rubber is the only thing that will bind wood to metal. I dunno. Rubber strips are used, as well as Aramid (kevlar), remay polyester, and carbon fibre in strip form.

and yeah, flame treating. I used to work at a factory and once when there was nothing to do I found and read this paper several pages long about sidewall material and how you have to flame treat it and it changes the molecules so the glue will bond to it properly. That's not for base material though. I wish I had that paper now.

and yes, it pays off in the long run to do your own homework.
 
well, your kinda right. the rubber strips you lay over the edges are just layed up with the epoxy. its not that metal and wood wont bond (they bond easily), but the rubber acts as a vibration dampener, and a shear layer. without it, when the ski is flexed, it is alot easier for the ski to delaminate. id say thats more physics tho, since its JUST rubber (haha, i have a 60m roll of the shit in my closet, along with about 20M of edges, topsheets, and bases. hehehe)
 
I guess you can talk about the chemical properties of the materials used, but it probably would have been easier to have chosen a topic that had a bit more going on chemistry wise, because apart from epoxy there doesn't seem to be alot that actually reacts in a pair of skis. but then you could easily fill 5 pages talking about different properties of the materials if you wanted to go that indepth. remember that you can't really bullshit and start turning it into a 'how to make a pair of skis' paper. good luck with it though
 
What he said

When you say your writing about the materials science of skis, are you specifically talking about that area of engineering and science, or are you just talking about chemistry (you say its for chem) and being general. If its the former, that site is a great place. It talks about specific material properties of the components of skis, the core, etc, with information about the young's modulus, hardness modulus, and other properties specific to materials sci/eng which would look great on a paper on so specific a topic.
 
Idk... is royale still around nowadays? He was going to start his own ski company... Im sure he could help you with your paper
 
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