Modelling, testing and modification on a high performances ski

Skis are very common sport tools. The competition among the different producers to promote and sell their products is very harsh and every seasons new technologies are introduced to improve ski performances and safety characteristics. Even if ski are quite simple in the geometry definition, their internal sandwich structures and the large number of materials and layers makes them somehow problematic to model. In this work, the results of the correlation analysis between the finite elements and the experimental models are presented. The results of the sensitivity analysis performed on the updated model are shown as well. The influence of different material characteristics and various structural modifications have been compared to suggest the best location and properties of a damper element used to reduce the ski vibration. Comparisons between different dampers technologies will be shown as well.