The abrasion severity index: a novel method for evaluating skin injury risk

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

Artificial turfs aim to provide a high-quality and durable playing performance. Third generation (3G) synthetic systems use a range of infill materials, pile densities, fibril dimensions and shock-pad performance, as manufacturers strive to replicate natural grass performance. Synthetic surfaces have historically exposed players to a greater risk of skin injury, or ‘turf burns’, than a grass pitch. The Securisport device is currently used to assess skin abrasion risk, aiding governing bodies in legislating the quality of turf such that they are safe for game-play and training. World Rugby-approved synthetic grass systems are termed “Rugby Turf”. Despite such advances, synthetic turfs still pose an inflated risk of skin injury versus natural grass surfaces. This has motivated the development of a new apparatus, the Skin Injury Device (SID), which better replicates a player-surface interaction and so provides a platform for more rigorous analysis. This increased testing sensitivity is especially timely, given the forthcoming environmental restrictions associated with rubber granules, a widely used infill material in 3G systems. This study now presents a new metric, the Abrasion Severity Index (ASI), which provides a more valid and sensitive method for assessing synthetic turf systems, based on their relative skin injury risk.