Advances in Sports Fluid Dynamics: Integrating Experiments, Simulations, and Applications

Submission Deadline: 31 March 2026 View: 130 Submit to Special Issue

Guest Editors

Prof. Dr. Pedro Forte

Email: pedromiguel.forte@iscedouro.pt

Affiliation: Department of Sports Sciences, Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of the Douro, Penafiel, 4560-708, Portugal

Homepage:

Research Interests: sports fluid dynamics, biomechanics, physiology

Summary

Sports fluid dynamics explores how air and water flows interact with athletes, equipment, and environments, shaping performance, efficiency, and safety in both competitive and recreational contexts. The discipline integrates experimental measurements, indirect estimations, and advanced numerical simulations to quantify and optimize aerodynamic and hydrodynamic factors influencing sporting outcomes.

Recent advances highlight the growing importance of fluid mechanics in enhancing sports performance, from cycling, swimming, and rowing to wheelchair racing, ski jumping, and sailing. Direct in-lab assessments, such as wind tunnel and flume testing, provide controlled measurements of drag, lift, turbulence, and flow separation. Indirect methods, including motion capture, wearable sensors, and metabolic estimations, expand applicability to real-world field conditions. In parallel, computational approaches, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), large-eddy simulations, and data-driven machine learning models, allow detailed visualization and prediction of complex athlete–environment interactions, guiding performance optimization and equipment design.

A crucial dimension of sports fluid dynamics lies in its ability to inform shape optimization and material selection for both athletes and equipment. Streamlined body postures, bicycle frames, helmets, swimsuits, skis, and sailing hulls are all subject to rigorous aerodynamic and hydrodynamic refinement. By combining flow visualization with shape parameterization techniques, researchers can identify geometries that reduce drag, enhance lift, or stabilize turbulent wake structures. Similarly, the selection and engineering of materials—ranging from low-drag textile fibers in swimsuits to lightweight, high-strength composites in bicycles and wheelchairs—are increasingly guided by insights from fluid-dynamic analysis. Material properties such as surface roughness, compliance, and wettability interact directly with boundary-layer development and flow separation, meaning that the "feel" of equipment in water or air is as much a fluid-dynamics issue as it is a mechanical one.

This Special Issue emphasizes methodological integration across direct, indirect, and simulation-based approaches, showcasing innovations in measurement technologies, validation frameworks, and athlete-centered applications. Particular attention will be given to studies that demonstrate how fluid-dynamic principles guide design optimization of shapes, textures, and materials in sporting equipment and apparel, thus bridging laboratory science with industrial manufacturing and field application.

Key themes include:
· Optimizing aerodynamic positioning and posture for athletes.
· Minimizing hydrodynamic resistance in water sports through body form, apparel, and equipment refinement.
· Assessing and redesigning equipment–fluid interactions, including the role of material properties and surface engineering.
· Developing predictive tools for individualized training and equipment customization.
· Integrating CFD and experimental methods for shape optimization in helmets, frames, hulls, skis, and beyond.
· Exploring novel material–flow interactions, such as bio-inspired textures and smart composites.

By bridging fundamental fluid mechanics with applied sports science, this collection aims to provide a reference for advancing performance, safety, and innovation in elite and recreational sport. In doing so, it highlights the increasingly central role of fluid-dynamics-informed shape optimization and material selection in shaping the future of sports technology.

Keywords