Mechanics of side-slipping in alpine skiing: theory of machining snow and ice

Abstract Side-slipping (or skidding) is a feature of several manoeuvres in alpine skiing, including few types skiing turns. On hard snow, side-slipping involves removal thin top layer that makes it similar to machining materials manufacturing. In this paper, we briefly review the theory and then propose an approximate model can be used describe skiing. We test against published results laboratory experiments ice snow find agreement.