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Richard Chiassaro BAE Systems Para Athletics
Richard Chiassaro poses with the Wheelchair Athlete Test and Training system.
BAE Systems, a champion of SOLIDWORKS software and NT CADCAM customer, has used the 3D CAD design tool to enhance the training of the Team GB World Para Athletics Championships squad.
The competition, established in 1994 and held biennially since 2011, sees athletes with physical and intellectual disabilities compete in a number of events. This week, it will come to the UK for the second time, and London for the first – the second ever edition of the event was held in Birmingham in 1998. And in preparation for the World Championships, Team GB’s 13 wheelchair racers have benefitted from the UK’s first computerised indoor trainer.
BAE Systems’ partnership with UK Sport, the government organisation which directs sport development within the United Kingdom, begun in 2008. Since then, BAE System scientists and engineers have collaborated with UK Sport personnel, combining the raw athletic power of the athletes with its mechanical, structural and simulation design technology, in a bid to help the British athletes reach the podium.
The result is the Wheelchair Athlete Test and Training system (WATT). Consisting of an adjustable frame that holds the athlete’s wheelchair in place and two electric motor brakes – adapted from the Tacx virtual reality bike trainer – that rest against the wheels, the system can create differing levels of resistance on the wheels. This helps to garner an accurate simulation of different road and course environments.
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BAE Systems Para Athletics James Ball
James Ball tests the new WATT system.
“The new WATT System is a ground-breaking advancement in wheelchair racing,” said Henry White, Bae Systems’ UK sport technology partnership lead. “There are a number of problems that the GB Team face when training in poor weather conditions, but with this new system they’ll be able to complete whatever training they need and access courses from all over the world, from wherever they are.”
BAE Systems also worked with UK Sport to develop a new racing wheel, one the company is calling ‘revolutionary’. Said to improve the wheelchair racers’ acceleration by up to 20%, the advanced composite wheel is three times stiffer than previous deigns used on the circuit and its rigidity helps to reduce ‘toe in’. Toe in being a force which causes the wheel to bend inward. By reducing the frequency of this friction, speed and acceleration is increased.
The wheel has been tested by Shelly Woods, a Paralympic silver medallist, in wind tunnels, also supplied by BAE Systems, to learn more about the wheel, in particular finding the most aerodynamic seating position when racing it. Here, when Woods leant forward by just 10 degrees, was when the collaborators learnt that by holding this position a speed increase of 20% could be achieved. As a result of this finding, Woods is confident the link-up between BAE Systems and UK Sport will have been worthwhile.
She said: “Paralympic sport is growing year-on-year in both strength and depth and being able to make use of the best in British engineering, thanks to the partnership between BAE Systems and UK Sport, can help keep British athletes at the forefront of this fiercely competitive environment.”
