Method of Measurement and Evaluation for the Mechanical Characteristics of Running Shoes

跑鞋鞋底对吸收从跑面传递过来的外力具有重要作用。特别是，发生在跑步者脚跟上的冲击力约为跑步者体重的3倍。因此，本文的目的是展示鞋底力学特性的测量和评价方法。试验中使用的冲击装置是考虑人脚跟与跑步面碰撞的情况而制作的。即最大冲击力约为2kN，冲击速度约为1m/s，载荷持续时间约为20 ~ 40ms。为了满足这些条件，我们设计了一种具有精确测量装置的落锤式测试系统。随机选择各种商用跑鞋进行试验，以检验测试系统的有效性。从测量结果中提取出每只鞋的力学性能，包括最大冲击力、最大变形量、能量吸收率、平均杨氏模量等，以评价每只鞋的缓冲特性。同时，对每只鞋进行了人体感官评价，并与力学测量结果进行了比较。结果，通过观察这两种评价的相似倾向，我们得到了。显然，机械测量与人的感官有一定的相关性。

Running shoe sole has an important role to absorb the external impact forces that transmitted form the running surface. Especially, the impact force occurred on the runner's heel is about 3 times of the runner's weight. Therefore, the purpose of in this paper is to show the method of measurement and evaluation for the mechanical characteristics of shoe sole. The impact device used in the trials, is made by considering the collision conditions between human heel and the running surface. It means the maximum impact force is about 2kN,the impact velocity is 1m/s and the duration time of load is about 20 to 40 ms. To satisfy all the conditions, we proposed a drop-weight type testing system with an accurate measuring devices. A variety of commercial running shoes were chosen randomly for the trials, to check up the validity of the testing system. From the measurements, the mechanical properties of each shoe, including the maximum impact force, maximum deformation, rate of energy absorption, average Young's modulus, etc, are extracted to evaluate the individual cushioning characteristics. At the same time, the human sensory evaluation of each shoe was done to compare with the mechanical measurements. As the result, by observing the similar tendencies of these two evaluations that we have obtained., it is obviously that the mechanical measurements have definite correlations with human senses.