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Long-term Cushioning Properties of Running Shoes (P152)

Stefan Schwanitz, Stephan Odenwald1

Topics: Materials; Shoes; Testing, Benchmarking. Abstract: In this report a test setup is presented that has been developed to generate a life cycle stress to the heel part of running shoes. The force-time-relationship has been derived from biomechanical investigations on ground reaction forces during running. By having investigated a range of 13 shoes it could be demonstrated that mechanical degradation leads to significant changes in the ability of sole materials to absorb energy. Furthermore an increased stiffness can be shown. Keywords: Durability; Mechanical Testing; Running shoes.

1- Introduction
Currently running is one of the worlds most popular sports. Several scientists have focused their work on the running movement and the resulting stress of the human body. Nigg (2001) claimed that shoe midsole hardness effects impact forces and shock attenuation properties. Impact forces were not directly connected to chronic or acute running injuries but to muscle activity, comfort and fatigue. Midsole material and mechanical properties differs among brand marketing concepts, proposed usage, quality level etc. (Heidenfelder & Odenwald 2006). But also mechanical aging of the shoe during its life cycle because of repeated deformation seems to have an influence on the cushioning behaviour of running footwear (Verdejo & Mills 2004-1). Verdejo & Mills (2004-2) presented a procedure to test midsole material samples of only 20x20x12 mm size. In literature there is no data about long-term behaviour of state of the art running footwear. The aim of this study was to create a machine based test design and to do an independent benchmark test on scientific level to obtain those data.

1. Chemnitz University of Technology, Institute of Mechanical and Polymer Engineering, Sports Equipment and Technology, Reichenhainer Str. 70, 09126 Chemnitz, Germany - E-mail: stefan.schwanitz,stephan.odenwald@mb.tu-chemnitz.de

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2- Materials & Methods


2.1 Test Setup
A hydraulic testing device (Zwick GmbH & Co. KG, Ulm/Germany) described by Heidenfelder & Odenwald (2005) has been used to transfer 240.000 load cycles to the heel part of running shoes. Load was applied perpendicular to a ground plate which the shoe was placed on. A heel-like shaped rigid stamp with a diameter of 50 mm constituted the contact zone between actuator and sole. Data collection regarding force and travel of the stamp was done at a frequency of 1000 Hz. The load-time profile has been derived from biomechanical investigations on ground reaction forces during running on concrete. Under controlled conditions (running velocity 3.4 3.6 m/s) it has been found that vertical ground reaction force rises during initial ground contact up to twice the runners body weight independent of midsole material and design. Peak time was found to be varying according to shoe condition and has been set to 35 ms for the machine test. Stride frequency was approximately 1.4 Hz and total duration of the heelground contact phase has been 100 ms. Figure 1 shows the transfer of the biomechanical data into machine nominal value curve. One cycle lasted 700 ms and every sample was tested continuously for approximately 47 hours. This leads to a calculated theoretical running mileage of approximately 600 km. After a recovery period of 48 hours each shoe has been retested for 100 cycles. Results of that test were compared to those of the 100th cycle of the first period. The smaller the difference between new and aged property is the better the long term behaviour is rated.

Figure 1 - Vertical GRF vs. load cycle.

2.2 Parameters
The height of the shoes in the tested area has been measured at the beginning of a cycle with a preload of 50 N (1). Furthermore sole height at peak load has been recorded and maximum deformation quantified (2). Calculations were done regarding the energy input (3), return (4) and loss (5) as being the shock attenuating properties. Stiffness of

load [kN]

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the sole has been calculated as the increase of the load deformation curve in between 200-400 N (6) and 1000-1500 N (7) of loading. (1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6) (7)

2.3 Samples
This study involved 13 shoes (size UK 9, weight 35316.8 g) produced by 9 different brands. All of them were mainly made of moulded EVA as midsole material. Eight out of those shoes had additional elements built in the rearfoot area: air chambers (n=2), silicon gel pads (n=3), TPU reinforcements (n=2) or EVA structure elements (n=1).

3- Results and Discussion


Fig. 2 is giving an example of the changed load-deformation behaviour of a new and aged shoe. Unloaded sole height is reduced to about -19.3 % 3.2 as well as height of the sole under peak load (Fig. 3, -15.9 % 2.3). The originally highest sample (height = 34.1 mm) showed the lowest loss in height (-13.8 %) and the second best result in maximum deformation (-14.9 %). Otherwise an only 30.4 mm high sample showed the best durability regarding maximum deformation (-14.8 %) while a comparable high shoe (30.3 mm) revealed the worst result in that category (-32.3 %).

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Figure 2 - Hysteresis of new vs. aged material.

Figure 3 - Sole height (preloaded, load maximum) of new vs. aged material.

With the decreasing material height in the heel zone of the investigated running shoes due to the aging process the shock absorbing ability of the sole material is reduced (Fig. 4). Energy input diminished by -22.5 % 5.7 and energy loss dropped about 22.3 % 6.0. The second highest sample (34.0 mm) presented the least changes in these parameters (energy input: -13.8 %; energy loss: -13.7 %).
10

sole height [mm]

load [kN]

new shoes
9 8 7 6

aged shoes

energy [J]

5 4 3 2 1 0 input return loss

Figure 4 - Energy balance of new vs. aged material.

energy [J]

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Fig. 5 shows the increased stiffness (stiffness1: 35.2 % 15.3; stiffness2: 38.2 % 9.6) of all tested samples. Material stiffness magnification in between 200-400 N differed from 9.3 % (highest sample) to 62.5 % (sample height when new 33.1 mm). Dynamic stiffness in the range of 1000-1500 N changed from 23.4 % (sample height 34.0 mm) up to 56.2 % (thinnest sample, height 26.6 mm).

Figure 5 - Stiffness of new vs. aged material.

4- Conclusion
Mechanical degradation leads to significant (p<0.001 for all tested parameters) reduction in running shoe midsole materials shock absorbing function. An explanation of this is that due to collapsing air cells as a result of EVA overuse (Even-Tzur et al. 2006) material thickness in the loaded area is lowered. One tendency of the presented results is that higher samples were more resistant against aging than the flatter ones. Highly significant correlation (p<0.001) towards original sole height can be reported for the alteration of stiffness2 (r =.784) and energy loss (r =.781).The much greater influencing factor seems to be the individual midsole material because of the obvious differences in changing of the characteristics of samples with comparatively identical height. There is no evidence for advantages or disadvantages regarding the long term behaviour of additional elements in the rearfoot area of running footwear. The next step in future of material durability research in running needs to be a comparison of biomechanical aged footwear towards the machine degraded. That will give an evaluation of the test methodology. Furthermore proved biomechanical relevance of the reduced cushioning abilities would strengthen the mechanical aging approach.

stiffness [Wmm]

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5- References
[EW1] Even-Tzur N., Weisz E., Hirsch-Falk Y., Gefen A. Role of EVA viscoelastic properties in the protective performance of a sport shoe: Computational studies. In Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, 16(5): 289-299, 2006. [HO1] Heidenfelder J., Odenwald S. Mechanische Prfung von Laufschuhen: In DIVERSVortragsreihe Wechselwirkung zwischen Materialtechnologie & Bewegungs-Analyse im Sport, Wien, 2005. [HO2] Heidenfelder J.; Odenwald S. Parameter der dynamischen Materialprfung an Laufschuhen: In: Polymerwerkstoffe 2006 Mikrostruktur, Morphologie und Bauteile, Halle/Saale, 2006. [N1] Nigg B.M. The role of impact forces and foot pronation: A new paradigm. In Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 11(1): 2-9, 2001. [VM1] Verdejo R., Mills N.J. Heelshoe interactions and the durability of EVA foam running-shoe midsoles, In Journal of Biomechanics 37(9): 1379-1386, 2004. [VM2] Verdejo R., Mills N.J. Simulating the effects of long distance running on shoe midsole foam, In Polymer Testing 23(5): 567-574, 2004.

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