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Hardness safety testing of artificial turf

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-07-06, 15:52 authored by Paul FlemingPaul Fleming, Charlie Watts, Jon Gunn, Steph ForresterSteph Forrester
This paper compares four sport surface hardness impact test devices, for use on artificial turf (AT) surfaces to control safety. Sports governing bodies require sport surfaces to be assessed with the “Advanced Artificial Athlete” (AAA) mechanical test. The AAA data presented here demonstrate that this high energy test causes compaction of the particulate rubber infill during testing, such that the derived “field test value” is less relevant to the initial state of the surface and arguably also to player comfort. This paper reports on alternative impact test methods and their correlation to the AAA, including a novel comparison to the more portable Fieldtester. The potential use of a lightweight 0.5 kg Clegg Hammer for assessing the change in state of the infill and monitoring the effectiveness of field maintenance is also reported. These results expand our understanding of factors influencing surface hardness and safety, with useful implications for practitioners.

Funding

Data in 3.2 and 3.3 were generated from an Innovate UK award (Technical Surfaces KTP009920).

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Proceedings 2020

Volume

49

Issue

1

Source

13th Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association

Publisher

MDPI AG

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Publication date

2020-06-15

Copyright date

2020

eISSN

2504-3900

Language

  • en

Location

Online

Event dates

22nd June 2020 - 26th June 2020

Depositor

Dr Paul Fleming. Deposit date: 6 July 2020

Article number

130

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