Several ski companies have recently introduced vibration damping features in their product lines. These features are designed to improve the performance of the ski and lessen felt shock. Three brands of vibration damping systems were tested to determine the effectiveness of the damping features. Similar skis without damping systems were also tested. The systems were tested in the lab and on the hill. In the lab the systems were subjected to a variety of random inputs and their responses recorded. On the hill the data was collected from the ski and binding as the ski was being used. A portable data collection system carried by the skier was employed to gather information. It was found that two of the systems did reduce vibrations and transmitted shock over ranges of the frequency spectrum. An error in the data collection process prevented a determination of the effectiveness of the third damping system.
I'm not particularly fond of CWRU's standard thesis format, so I re-formatted the document to appear more like a technical book. Specifically, I used O'Reilly's Learning Perl, 2nd Ed. as a basis for this format. The page size is defined as standard letter (8.5 x 11) in the ps file, however, after duplex printing it may be trimmed to the intended dimensions of 7 x 9 3/16.