During the design and development of the latest sports shoes, Engineers and Researchers need to investigate the impact and rebound performance of different materials and structures. In addition to normal everyday uses, extreme sports activities such as basketball, skateboarding, or running are placing an even more challenging demands on today’s athletic footwear that can result in impact forces at more than 10 times body-weight. Manufacturers are under pressure to develop new sports shoe designs with advanced air cushioning, gel-filled capsules, or complex sole structures that offer superior technical performance.
In addition to performing tests to ASTM F1614 "Standard Test Method for Shock Attenuating Properties of Materials Systems for Athletic Footwear”, our ElectroPuls Test Instruments provide flexibility to test other criteria. This includes evaluating the energy returned by a shoe during impact, the amount of cushioning provided by different shoe and sole designs, and the long-term fatigue behavior of the shoe.
Critical to the control and performance of the system is WaveMatrix Dynamic Test Software. The optional Advanced Control Module provides the ability to ensure cross-mode peak levels are maintained on impulse and other complex profiles such as walk cycles or recorded gait data. The optional WaveMatrix Calculation Module allows calculation of properties such as Energy, Elastic Stiffness and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) properties that help characterize shoe performance.
When these two advanced modules are used together, WaveMatrix is able to regulate impulses and complex profiles, as well as standard cyclic waveforms, based on calculated parameters such as peak energy, elastic stiffness, or even acceleration.