Evaluation of dynamic characteristics for sport surface with two-dimensional nonlinear viscoelastic model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate dynamic characteristics for sports surfaces with two-dimensional nonlinear viscoelastic model. Shock attenuation property of sports surfaces is especially important not only for the athlete’s performance but also for injury prevention. To evaluate the properties of the sports surfaces, friction tests and shock attenuation tests were often adopted to determine the horizontal and vertical characteristics, respectively. Although the diagonal impacts are often observed in athletic sports, shock attenuation test treats only the vertical impact test. Therefore, we developed a two-dimensional impact test device for examining the two-dimensional cushioning characteristics of sports surfaces in previous studies. In previous studies, we proposed the two-dimensional viscoelastic model of sport surfaces for evaluating the two-dimensional cushioning properties and indicated that the proposed model can be used for estimating the impact forces from the experimental data. In this study, shock attenuation properties were evaluated from the results of impact simulation by using the proposed model and identified parameters. Finally, the results indicated the importance of two-dimensional shock attenuation and the model-simulation method for evaluating the shock attenuation.