bigmontana
12-20-2006, 16:51
So my day job is in science (I'd rather be on the trail) which may be boring to a lot of you, but this new article in Nature (a scientific journal) is relative to Whiteblaze interests and possibly the future of backpacking.
Yes, this may seem completely crazy but "rubber banding" your load and allowing it to bounce up and down on the frame saves energy according to this new pack design. The design allows the load to stay in relatively the same position instead of travelling up and down with the body as you walk (due to tight hip/shoulder straps). The "suspended load" doesn't require constant acceleration from the hips and instead rides with the body.
From the journal: "The metabolic cost of walking with the load falls from 640W for the locked backpack to 600W... ...Although the reduction in metabolism is modest (6.2%) in terms of the total metabolic rate, it represents 23% of the extra metabolic power (176 W) that is required to walk with a 27-kg load rather than with an empty backpack. Walking with 27 kg in the suspended backpack is equivalent to walking with 21.7 kg in the locked backpack in terms of metabolic cost, so — for a given metabolic rate — the suspended backpack enables a substantially heavier load to be carried."
What does this mean? You could potentially reduce the "perceived weight" of your pack without getting rid of anything.:D
It will be interesting to see if they can make this design light/comfortable enough for our taste.
If you have access to this sort of thing (many of you won't):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/full/4441023a.html
Yes, this may seem completely crazy but "rubber banding" your load and allowing it to bounce up and down on the frame saves energy according to this new pack design. The design allows the load to stay in relatively the same position instead of travelling up and down with the body as you walk (due to tight hip/shoulder straps). The "suspended load" doesn't require constant acceleration from the hips and instead rides with the body.
From the journal: "The metabolic cost of walking with the load falls from 640W for the locked backpack to 600W... ...Although the reduction in metabolism is modest (6.2%) in terms of the total metabolic rate, it represents 23% of the extra metabolic power (176 W) that is required to walk with a 27-kg load rather than with an empty backpack. Walking with 27 kg in the suspended backpack is equivalent to walking with 21.7 kg in the locked backpack in terms of metabolic cost, so — for a given metabolic rate — the suspended backpack enables a substantially heavier load to be carried."
What does this mean? You could potentially reduce the "perceived weight" of your pack without getting rid of anything.:D
It will be interesting to see if they can make this design light/comfortable enough for our taste.
If you have access to this sort of thing (many of you won't):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/full/4441023a.html