Swim smarts: Engineers? Drag increases as speed increases?
Former Member
I overheard one of the local club team coaches prepping the kids before a technique based drill make the statement that the faster you go the more drag you encounter. He was having them ensure they kept their shoulder to cheek on their free sets to narrow the frontal profile. While I am not questioning the coach I just wanted to know if one of you smart Masters swimmers might be able to dumb that down for me.
So to ensure I lay this out to the best of my understanding which is probably wrong: for two physical clones swimming freestyle in lanes next to each other with completely identical technical strokes down to the mm. The drag for the 1:20 pace swimmer will be less than the swimmer peeling off 1:10 splits? I'm a big dummy so wrapping my head around that idea just isn't sinking in.
Thanks for the Saturday morning hydrodynamics lesson!
Parents
Former Member
Hi Vo2,
Fluid mechanics is very tough subject. The formulas Swimosaur provided are correct but the first is only a simplification of drag.
The simple answer is that the actual drag a swimmer must overcome increases rapidly as their speed increases. There might be an exception to this corresponding to the "transition" between laminar and turbulent flow. That said, the simple answer " Drag rises quickly as you swim faster..." is about 99.9% correct.
FF
Reply
Former Member
Hi Vo2,
Fluid mechanics is very tough subject. The formulas Swimosaur provided are correct but the first is only a simplification of drag.
The simple answer is that the actual drag a swimmer must overcome increases rapidly as their speed increases. There might be an exception to this corresponding to the "transition" between laminar and turbulent flow. That said, the simple answer " Drag rises quickly as you swim faster..." is about 99.9% correct.
FF
