We know how competitive the sport of swimming is and how the races are won by the tiniest of tiniest margins after swimming for even a mile. So swimmers accept any tactical advantage they would be offered. It’s award winning design was created by Speedo in the year 2000 and all the swimmers taking part in the 2000 Olympic games were using the swimsuit. It was called the “fast skin” swimsuit. It was an incredible success. The speedo swimmers using these suits broke 13 of the 15 records in the Sydney Olympics and won 83% of all swim medals. The Fast skin suit reduced drag by 4% but the ultimate swimsuit was designed for the 2008 Olympic games where Michael Phelps wore the newly designed “LZR Suit” which aided him in breaking 8 World Olympic Records single handedly. This Suit is a great example of Biomimicric design and another fact about it is 92% of the athletes that wore the LZR suit won a medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympic games. That spells success for you right there!
The Design:
It (the suit) is inspired from sharkskin. Seen under an electron microscope, sharkskin is made up of countless overlapping scales called dermal denticles(or “little skin teeth”). The denticles have grooves running down their length in alignment with water flow. These grooves disrupt the formation of eddies, or turbulent swirls of slower water, making the water pass by faster. The rough shape also discourages parasitic growth such as algae and barnacles.So the designers tried to replicate this design onto a swimsuit to provide the users with the ultimate tactical advantage for these close margin races. The denticles I spoke about above, scientists managed to replicate them on to the swimsuits.
Unlike the fast skin suits, the drag is reduced by a staggering 10% and so is the pressure drag. This is made possible because the swimmers body is compressed in a more streamlined shape, which reduces the pressure drag.
Due to the design of the denticles the viscosity drag is also cut down. Viscosity drag is a very important factor and probably the one whose cut down leads to enhanced performance (can see with difference in the fast skin suit and LZR suit). The last factor that enhances performance of the swimmer is that the buoyancy is assisted by entrapping air within the swimsuit which allows a swimmer to be higher in the water and consequently focus their effort on horizontal propulsion.
However these suits were banned in 2012 London Olympics games as they were given a label of being ‘Technology Doping” but however I don’t think that should’ve happened for the simple fact that it was a fantastic design which was not breaking any rules. People referred to these suits as a performance-enhancing drug which according to me is absolute rubbish. But Sport being sport and design being design I’ll bet the intersection of technology and competition isn’t over.
Bibliography:
- http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/7-amazing-examples-of-biomimicry/copying-mother-nature
- http://www.symscape.com/blog/swimsuit-banned-as-technology-doping
- http://www.speedo.co.uk/speedo_brand/insidespeedo/history/index.html
- google.com for images
But this is certainly biomicry.
athletic competition is often just competition among technologies. It may aid athletes from advanced countries the most and make records meaningless