Sviluppo di una metodologia integrata per la valutazione funzionale di moderni sci da scialpinismo

Aim of this work is the development of an integrated methodolgy for the functional evaluation of modern ski touring skis. Indoor and outdoor tests were conducted on three pairs of Blizzard skitouring skis to assess differences in skiing performance and at the same time to validate the method. At first indoor test in Padova on Slytech bench were made to evaluate the edge load profiles of the skis, a characteristic ‘footprint’ representative of the force distribution on the ski edges during a turn. Bench tests were carried out on a surface representative of hard snow, while softer surfaces with behavior similar to soft snow were characterized for future trial. Subsequently, outdoor tests were conducted on skis instrumented with load cells in Nassfeld, focusing on the loads acting at the ski-snow interface. At the end subjective evaluation of the performances of the three skis were collected in Madonna di Campiglio with a questionnaire filled from ski instructors. The results of the bench and track tests were then compared with the subjective ratings obtained to confirm their representativeness. This workflow gave a complete set of objective and subjective parameters to evaluate the ski performances of skis with different shape, geometry and stiffness.