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Development and reliability quantification of a novel test set-up for measuring footwear bending stiffness

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Abstract

Since footwear flexibility impacts functional design factors, numerous studies have investigated footwear bending stiffness. However, the various methods used to measure footwear bending stiffness have some limitations. Hence, the scope of this study was to develop and quantify the reliability of a novel test set-up for measuring footwear bending stiffness. A test set-up consisting of a hydraulic testing machine, a bending apparatus and a fixation unit was created that fulfilled the requirements specified in the initial phase of the study. The test set-up was evaluated by testing 15 different boots in three series of measurements. Bending stiffness of the boots ranged from 0.61 ± 0.03 to 2.38 ± 0.08 Nm/°. Two-way analysis of variance test yielded that the test set-up enabled the reliable measurement of footwear bending stiffness. Relative measurement uncertainty ranged from 1.3 to 6.1 %.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr Steffen Weichold for granting us access to the data of the foot scans and Mr Justin Lange for realizing the biomechanical study. This study was funded by armasuisse (Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport DDPS).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemnitz University of Technology, Sports Equipment and Technology, Reichenhainer Str. 70, 09126, Chemnitz, Germany

    Dominik Krumm, Stefan Schwanitz & Stephan Odenwald

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  1. Dominik Krumm
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  2. Stefan Schwanitz
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  3. Stephan Odenwald
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Correspondence to Dominik Krumm.

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Krumm, D., Schwanitz, S. & Odenwald, S. Development and reliability quantification of a novel test set-up for measuring footwear bending stiffness. Sports Eng 16, 13–19 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-012-0106-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-012-0106-7

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