Engineering a medal bid

On 18 February, Kristan Bromley, a former BAE Systems engineer, will be hurtling down one of the fastest and most terrifying ice runs to ever feature in the Winter Olympics.

One of the challenges Fleetcroft faces during aerodynamic analysis is modelling the athlete’s position within the CFD facilities. This requires the athlete to lie still for long periods while their body position is scanned into a computer. With racers battling 5 G-forces in some corners, understanding how easy it is for them to maintain a position is crucial to successful sled design. This understanding has become even more important in recent years, with the introduction of regulations governing the use of standard steel frames and banning coatings.

‘Regulation changes have meant that we’re pursuing aerodynamics far more aggressively,’ he said. ‘Developments in composites have allowed us to exploit shapes even further, but a big issue we still face is sensitivity. You see this a lot in F1 and it’s the same in Skeleton. Often designs have a very small geometric window where they function — any slight change to the environment on the track and they perform much worse than you originally thought.’