How did NASA's wind tunnels lead to swimmers breaking world record times?
Shortly after the 2004 Olympics, Speedo wanted to design a new racing suit. “People would look at us and say ‘this isn’t rocket science’ and we began to think, ‘well, actually, maybe it is,’” explains Stuart Isaac, Speedo’s senior vice president of Team Sales and Sports Marketing. says Isaac. “Speedo had the materials in mind, but we did not know how they would perform in surface friction drag testing, which is where we enlisted the help of NASA,” says Isaac. As NASA is known for reducing drag and making things travel farther and faster, why wouldn’t they ask them to help? Speedo and NASA tested over 60 different fabrics in a small wind tunnel before settling on one called “LZR Pulse.” Once they had the fabric they wanted, they still had to figure out the most hydrodynamic way of fusing the pieces of fabric together. They found that ultrasonically welding the fabric pieces together reduces drag by 6% compared to traditional stitching. They also put in small, low-profile zippers under flaps of fabric to remove different pieces of the suit according to the preference of the swimmer. This suit, called the “LZR Racer,” reduced drag by 24% more than the previous Speedo racing suit, the Fastskin.