Design of a fatigue ski testing bench

The aim of this paper is to show the design procedure for a fatigue ski test bench. The interest in developing an equipment to test ski characteristics has greatly raised since the introduction of carving skis. The characteristics of this kind of skis allow new trajectories and promise turn easiness and fun to everyone. These features come from a correct combination of ski shape and mechanical characteristics both of which determine load distribution under the edges. To quantify ski edge load and to characterise different skis, as well as to test their fatigue behaviour, we designed a ski test bench that allows to load an edged ski against an instrumented bed and to measure load distribution along the edge as well as the shape of the deformed edge.