High-Tech Racing In Swimming
Marine animals have naturally smooth skin due to their lifestyle.
What is the big deal about so-called high-tech swimwear (such as Speedo’s LZR racing suit that created a buzz last summer during the Olympics)? The main idea behind the design of such swimwear is to reduce the forces that oppose the swimmer’s motion through the water, which effectively makes it easier for the swimmer to move through the water and therefore allows him/her to “swim faster.”
One of the main features of high-tech swimwear is the ability to repel water from the swimwear fabric. This is advantageous for competitive swimming because if the water tends to be absorbed into the fabric instead, then a drag force is induced on the swimmer. This drag force opposes motion through water, similar to how friction opposes motion of an object on a surface. Therefore, by repelling water instead of allowing water to be absorbed into the swimwear fabric, these high-tech suits help reduce opposition to the swimmer’s motion. Many companies claim to make competitive swimwear that repel water much better than natural human skin in water, which makes it advantageous to have the suit cover as much of the human body as possible (the “full-body suits”) in order to fully take advantage of this technology.
One side note about the design of high-tech swimwear: the texture is similar to the skin of marine animals, such as dolphins. Marine animals have smooth skin naturally because their lifestyle revolves around moving through water efficiently. From this, we can see that sometimes we can learn about human technology through nature.
(Image from Wikipedia.)
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