The performance of a luge competitor is highly influenced by the interaction between the luge blades and the ice. This interaction depends on the environmental and loading conditions onto which the equipment must be adapted in order to get the lowest friction and still allow good steering of the luge. Until now, the evolution went mainly through the athlete's perception and by trial and error during field testing. The objective of the present study was to optimise the sliding of steel blades on ice by an analysis of penetration and friction acting on the blades during sliding. In order to achieve this goal, a specific laboratory measuring campaign was conducted. The friction force and the penetration into the ice of four different steel blade cross-sections for various experimental settings were measured. It was observed that friction and penetration are highly correlated and mainly influenced by the outside angle of the blade. It was verified that the laboratory experiments are very accurate and reproduce well the field conditions.
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