Seek and Geek 6: Pole Vaulting

This week I’ll be taking a look at pole vaulting.

There are five main stages.
(1) Run up - basically the vaulter runs down the runway increasing their kinetic energy
(2) Pole Plant and take off - the pole is planted in the box and the vaulter bends the pole
and jumps up.
(3) Pole Bend – the kinetic energy is transferred to elastic strain and potential energy as the
pole bends.
(4) Pull and Release – Once the pole is vertical (high potential energy). The vaulter pulls
his/her body up higher to overcome the bar and releases the pole
(5) Clearance –After releasing the pole, the vaulter moves his/her body in a parabolic path
to sequentially clear the bar.

Figure 2 Types of energy in different stages of the pole vaulting process. Ref: https://business.uoregon.edu/news/pole-vault-
world-records

To the first order, a pole vaulter will take his kinetic

energy (1/2mv2) and convert it to potential energy
(mgh) with a change into elastic strain energy (1/2 kx2 )
in between. Assuming no skill was required, h = 0.5 v2/g.
I used to run 100 m hurdles in 17 s, so let’s pretend I’m
running at the same speed with hurdles in the way, I
could theoretically vault 1.8 m. However, this isn’t the
case. The energy converted from kinetic energy to
Figure 1 Kinetic Energy loss during take-off
elastic energy to potential energy and then back to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC
kinetic energy. There are losses at each stage of this, 3737876/pdf/jssm-11-245.pdf
resulting in me not being able to vault the theoretical
height (ignoring my skill at vaulting).
First, the vaulter sprints down the lane and plants the pole into the take-off box and performs a
running jump. This running jump dissipates some of the vaulter’s initial kinetic energy. The

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take-off angle also relates to how much kinetic energy is dissipated. The higher the take-off
angle, the less energy is dissipated. At the higher the take-off angle, the higher the force in the
upward direction which will assist in launching the vaulter upwards. However, there still needs
to be momentum in the forward direction in order to move forward and go over the bar.
Therefore, an ideal take-off angle is somewhere in between the two extremes. The take-off
angle also relates to the placement of the center of mass of the vaulter. A shorter vaulter will
start the jump with a lower take-off angle and a lower center of mass than a taller vaulter. This
requires more energy for the shorter vaulter to overcome the same bar height.

In addition, placement of the vaulter’s hands on the pole will impact the take-off angle. If the
vaulter is holding the pole closer to the base, the take-off angle will be higher than one holding
it farther back. However, a placement farther back will allow for a larger level arm and a higher
placement during stage (4).
Lastly, the pole. The used to be made of wood, then bamboo, then steel, now carbon fiber. The
1
stored energy is 2 𝑘𝑥 2 . With the change in pole material, the world record steadily increased.
This may be due how much energy is
dissipated as heat during the bending
and recoiling process. Assuming a
constant geometry, the stiffness of the
pole increases over time as the elastic
modulus of the materials increased
from 10 GPa (wood) to 228 GPa
(carbon fiber). A stiffer pole means
Figure 3 World Pole Vaulting Records more energy stored per unit
https://business.uoregon.edu/news/pole-vault-world-records
displacement. Poles are spec’d by their
length and allowable weight of the vaulter. The weight spec comes from the stiffness of the
pole which is measured by the “flex” or deformation of pole when a 22 kg is applied to the
center of pole that’s fixed on both ends. Based on the “flex” specs, the stiffness of a pole is ~
240 N/m, which isn’t very stiff (relative to the stiff we’ve done in class). However, when the
3𝐸𝐼
pole is used for vaulting, it’s fixed on the bottom with a weigh applied to the end - 𝐾 = so
𝐿3
the stiffness is 330 N/m. Intuition says these values are pretty low - I estimated the outer
diameter of the tubing, so I might be off there. The inner diameter was found online. If a
vaulter weighed 70 kg, that means the beam (of length ~4 m) would deflect 30 cm! That’s
almost 10% of the length! If I take my KE from running up to the pole vault – it’s 1.2 kJ. Now, if I
calculate the energy stored in the pole (1/2 kx2 ) would be 59 J. Now luckily a lot of the energy is
converted to potential energy, but the this number seems low considering how much the pole
actually bends.

There are also energy losses associated with the energy dissipated in the vaulter’s muscles, but
that’s beyond the scale of my knowledge realm.

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