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| Dannevall aluminium dog sled. Fully equipped with extras, functions and finesses but keeping the weight down to 22 kg thanks to an optimised design based on aluminium extrusions. |
Kjell Dannevall has developed a dog sled for use in competitions made entirely from aluminium.
Riding a sled with a dog team is something one may be lucky to do as a tourist on a winter holiday. But for many who take part in competitions in Scandinavia, and not least in Europe where this is a major sport, this is a way of life and fulltime occupation.
Kjell Dannevall and his wife Nina are well known participants in this sport. Both have taken part in Swedish, European and World Championships – Kjell was third in the World Championships held in Åsarna in 2008 and Nina won the eight-dog team event at the Swedish Championships last winter. Besides dog-sledding, Kjell manages a tourist facility – Camp Dannevall – at Krokom outside Östersund in the heart of Sweden. Here visitors, who come from the whole of Europe, can enjoy the outdoor life in the wilderness where there is an increased specialisation on dog sledding. The majority have their own dogs with them and training camps are held for periods from a few weeks up to a couple of months.
Developed snow scooters
During the last year Kjell has combined his work at the tourist hotel with a development project aimed at building a completely new aluminium dog sled for competitions. This is partly intended to give the company another leg to stand on and with it financial stability, partly to further develop the sport in which he is so passionately involved. And everything is in his favour. Kjell has a solid background as a designer, both in his own company and not least as the development manager for Aktiv’s range of snow scooters during the eighties.
The traditional dog sled with a wooden framework has been around for years and developments have been modest. The manufacturers, like the users, have shown a degree of conservatism and new materials have been viewed with a certain amount of scepticism. But developments are now moving towards a combination of plastic, aluminium and composite, and Kjell is now looking at a sled where aluminium is the main material.
“My aim is to develop a sled that is easy to drive, saves energy and makes life easier for the driver,” Kjell explains.
1,700 km long distance race!
To understand the background it is useful to know that a long-distance sled race is no Sunday afternoon outing. The longest – Alaska’s Iditarod – is over 1,700 km and Scandinavian equivalents vary from 300 km to 1,000 km!! Shortdistance runs are not exactly pieces of cake either; 150 km is a normal run.
Manoeuvring a heavily loaded sled for several hours in extreme weather with total concentration and a wayward dog team takes its toll! And Kjell seems to have succeeded. Reports from a number of test runs carried out by colleagues and acquaintances have been unanimously positive. Drivers who have been exhausted after a race were not even tired. What is the secret?
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| The plate is raised and wider than the traditional design which provides better driving characteristics, manoeuvrability and ergonomics. |
Heavy project
Using aluminium extrusions, Kjell has succeeded in creating a strong and stable design that keeps the weight down despite being equipped with all the imaginable extras, functions and finesses available – and a few more besides – that make life easier for the driver.
“It has been a pretty tough project,” Kjell admits. “The main components were easily solved but the details took time. Getting a completely balanced sled irrespective of whether it was empty or fully loaded was tricky. Finding a geometry and a concept that would work technically and not least in production.”
Kjell based his work on the traditional sled, changed the materials and manufacturing methods as well as reducing the number of components. The final result is a sled that uses some ten extrusions, all optimised in terms of weight and strength, but where Kjell has given great priority to creating a multifunctional extrusion with simple and robust joints. These consist of screws and glue, welding is only used on in one place, something that greatly facilitates manufacture.
All the extrusions are supplied from Hydro Aluminium Profiler machined
and ready to be assembled.
“We have worked extremely close together during the development phase, which was decisive in the quality of the final result,” says Kjell Dannevall.
Through Peak Innovation, a project for research and business development in winter sports, tourism and the outdoor industry in the county of Jämtland, Kjell has begun working together with the Mid Sweden University’s National Winter Sports Centre and can access its exceptional R&D resources. He will also receive help with valuable testing and verification of the sled’s functions.
Patented steering
Among the features that make the sled unique is a patented steering design where the traces, fixed to a face bar, slide sideways when cornering to heighten the turning effect at the same time as the skis tilt. An integrated system that is manoeuvred with a curved steering arm that moves along all axes. A raised and wider footplate, closed bed to prevent the accumulation of snow and ice that would weigh the sled down and a streamlined design to reduce wind resistance are other features that make Dannevall’s sled a strong competitor to the traditional design.
And paves the way for future success for Kjell Dannevall with extrusions on the slide in the sled’s tracks!
