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JOURNAL
OF
SPORTS SCIENCE &
MEDICINE
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Research
article
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ANALYSIS OF DRAFTING EFFECTS IN SWIMMING USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS |
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António José Silva1,2  ,
Abel Rouboa1, António Moreira3, Victor Machado Reis1,2, Francisco Alves4,
João Paulo Vilas-Boas5 and Daniel Almeida Marinho1,2 |
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1University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal, 2Centre of Research in Sports, Health and Human Development, Vila Real, Portugal, 3Sports Science Institute of Rio Maior, Portugal, 4Faculty of Human Kinetics, Lisbon, Portugal, 5Faculty of Sports, University of Porto, Portugal. |
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© Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (2008) 7, 60 - 66 Search Google Scholar for Citing Articles |
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| ABSTRACT | |||
| The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of drafting
distance on the drag coefficient in swimming. A k-epsilon turbulent model
was implemented in the commercial code Fluent® and applied to the fluid
flow around two swimmers in a drafting situation. Numerical simulations
were conducted for various distances between swimmers (0.5-8.0 m) and swimming
velocities (1.6-2.0 m.s-1). Drag coefficient (Cd) was computed for each
one of the distances and velocities. We found that the drag coefficient
of the leading swimmer decreased as the flow velocity increased. The relative
drag coefficient of the back swimmer was lower (about 56% of the leading
swimmer) for the smallest inter-swimmer distance (0.5 m). This value increased
progressively until the distance between swimmers reached 6.0 m, where the
relative drag coefficient of the back swimmer was about 84% of the leading
swimmer. The results indicated that the Cd of the back swimmer was equal
to that of the leading swimmer at distances ranging from 6.45 to 8. 90 m.
We conclude that these distances allow the swimmers to be in the same hydrodynamic
conditions during training and competitions.
Key words: Training, human body, drag, tandem, finite element modeling. |
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