Thursday, July 21, 2016
The Math Behind the Perfect Climbing Rope
gizmodo.com: Rock and mountain climbers rely on strong, yet elastic ropes to keep them safe should they happen to fall. Now mathematicians at the University of Utah have come up with an equation to design an ideal climbing rope—one that would be safer and more durable. They described this perfect rope, and a promising class of materials that might be used to make it, in a recent paper in the Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology.
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Although a bit of a bait-and-switch, This is exhibiting an exciting advance in materials science that we might be able to see in the rigging world. I must say I know next to nothing about the rock-climbing world, So I'd like to think about what this advance could do for theater. I'd like to look at the use of these kinds of ropes for use in safety rigging. I'm not terribly sure of the physics, but in instances where an error is made and counterweight is either not installed or falls out of a fly line, the energy involved can be enormous, and sometimes the jerking force of a traditional safety may cause other problems such as falling lights, scenery, etc, but with these ropes used as safeties, could it be possible for a runaway line to be caught more softly, distributing the energy over a greater time period. Also, safeties for hands in a lighting grid or people being flown could be made much more safe with this rope, as opposed to the yoyo safety that is seen traditionally, which stops someone from falling with no give at all, by simply adding a length of this rope the safety could become much more safe for the subject. Overall I am excited to see what becomes of this advance.
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