The maneuvers of a competition diver on a springboard before takeoff may serve to maximize the height of the flight phase. To simplify analysis, it is often assumed that the diver performs motions at the top of a single degree-of-freedom (DOF) system, usually consisting of one mass and one linear spring. This system is expected to simulate the behavior of the board sufficiently. In this paper we propose a new single DOF system approximating the effects of a board with passable accuracy. This model is applied to three types of springboards to obtain numerical values for their virtual masses at the tip.
Bob W. Kooi is with the Department of Biology, Free University, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Max Kuipers is with the Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, the Netherlands.
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