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Michael
J. O’Shea Snowboarding |
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Snowboard jumping,
Newton’s second law and the force on landing – Special Feature, M. J.
O’Shea, Phys. Edu. 39, 335 (2004) A snowboarder
dropping over a vertical edge onto soft sloping snow at the base is
analyzed. The force experienced by the
snowboarder on landing can be significantly reduced not only by the
cushioning of the snow, but also by the slope itself. Analogous effects are present for a
mountain bike dropping over a vertical edge onto a sloping surface. In the geometry shown below the snowboarder
is assumed to have enough speed to just make it to the slope. The force on landing FN is shown in units of the weight of the person,
mg. The quantities d and b are
taken to be 3.0 m
and 0.5 m respectively. As can be
seen, selecting the right angle of the slope q can reduce the
force on landing significantly.
Selecting the wrong angle can give a very large force on landing! It is interesting
that the physics behind mountain bikes jumping off ledges and landing on
sloping surfaces is very similar. Here
the compression of the shocks on the bike would replace b and the slope would enter the problem in a similar way to that
of the snowboarder. An introductory
problem on a snowboarder dropping off a vertical ledge can be found here. A slightly more
difficult snowboard problem can be found here. |
