WO2001049139A1 - Impact absorbing device - Google Patents
Impact absorbing device Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- WO2001049139A1 WO2001049139A1 PCT/GB2001/000052 GB0100052W WO0149139A1 WO 2001049139 A1 WO2001049139 A1 WO 2001049139A1 GB 0100052 W GB0100052 W GB 0100052W WO 0149139 A1 WO0149139 A1 WO 0149139A1
- Authority
- WO
- WIPO (PCT)
- Prior art keywords
- impact absorbing
- absorbing device
- impact
- shin
- shell layer
- Prior art date
Links
Classifications
-
- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
- A63B—APPARATUS FOR PHYSICAL TRAINING, GYMNASTICS, SWIMMING, CLIMBING, OR FENCING; BALL GAMES; TRAINING EQUIPMENT
- A63B71/00—Games or sports accessories not covered in groups A63B1/00 - A63B69/00
- A63B71/08—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions
- A63B71/12—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions for the body or the legs, e.g. for the shoulders
- A63B71/1225—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions for the body or the legs, e.g. for the shoulders for the legs, e.g. thighs, knees, ankles, feet
-
- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A41—WEARING APPAREL
- A41D—OUTERWEAR; PROTECTIVE GARMENTS; ACCESSORIES
- A41D31/00—Materials specially adapted for outerwear
- A41D31/04—Materials specially adapted for outerwear characterised by special function or use
- A41D31/28—Shock absorbing
- A41D31/285—Shock absorbing using layered materials
-
- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
- A63B—APPARATUS FOR PHYSICAL TRAINING, GYMNASTICS, SWIMMING, CLIMBING, OR FENCING; BALL GAMES; TRAINING EQUIPMENT
- A63B71/00—Games or sports accessories not covered in groups A63B1/00 - A63B69/00
- A63B71/08—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions
- A63B71/12—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions for the body or the legs, e.g. for the shoulders
- A63B71/1225—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions for the body or the legs, e.g. for the shoulders for the legs, e.g. thighs, knees, ankles, feet
- A63B2071/1258—Body-protectors for players or sportsmen, i.e. body-protecting accessories affording protection of body parts against blows or collisions for the body or the legs, e.g. for the shoulders for the legs, e.g. thighs, knees, ankles, feet for the shin, e.g. shin guards
Definitions
- This invention relates to impact absorbing devices for protecting body parts, with particular, but not exclusive, reference to devices for protecting a human shin.
- Impact absorbing devices for protecting a human shin often known as shin pads or shin guards, are well known. Such devices are commonly used in sports such as football, rugby and hockey in order to provide protection from an impact with objects such as balls, posts, sticks and players.
- the objective of such devices is to prevent or reduce the instances of injuries, which can take the form of soft tissue damage, such as cuts or bruising, cruciate ligamentous injury, and fracture of the tibia.
- shin pads take the form of a relatively stiff outer shell, often fabricated from a plastic material, and compressible inner layer, such as a foam.
- the present invention address the above described needs, and provides improved absorbing devices for protecting a human shin.
- the devices are lightweight, and are particularly adapted to minimise tibia fractures and cruciate ligament injuries.
- At the heart of the present invention is a new design philosophy which i) considers the impact of an object with a human shin in terms of the dynamics of the forces applied during the impact and ii) uses the results obtained thereby in order to formulate improved designs.
- an impact absorbing device for protecting a human body part which is positionable against the body part and generally conforming thereto, the device comprising a shell layer and a compressible layer;
- the compressible layer has an average elastic modulus, as hereinafter defined, of greater than O.lOMPa, preferably greater than 0.15MPa, most preferably greater than 0.25MPa, and less than 0.50MPa, preferably less than 0.40MPa.
- the "average elastic modulus” is the gradient of an equivalent plot of the actual stress/strain characteristics of the compressible layer, in which the stress/strain characteristics from zero strain to a strain value of 0.8 are replotted so that the stress is directly proportional to the strain, but the area under the graph (i.e., the stress integrated between the strain limits of zero to 0.8) is equal to the area under the actual stress/strain graph.
- the "average elastic modulus” is the gradient of an equivalent, linearised stress/strain plot between zero and 0.8 strain. This description is necessitated because the stress/strain characteristics of a typical compressible material are not linear over a range of strains from 0.0 to 0.8, and therefore a single value for the elastic modulus cannot be obtained directly.
- the device may be an impact absorbing device for protecting a human shin, which is positionable against the shin and generally conforming thereto.
- the compressible layer may have an average elastic modulus, and hereinbefore defined, of greater than or equal to 0.30MPa. As will be demonstrated below, values around 0.30MPa are preferred, because this allows the use of a shell layer having a stiffness similar to the stiffness of the human tibia. Devices of this type can absorb impact loads which approach or even exceed the accepted maximum tolerable load which the human tibia can withstand without fracture (ca. 5000 N).
- the compressible layer may comprise a bubble wrap material having a plurality of compressible pockets.
- the stiffness of at least a portion of the shell layer may be less than 1500 Nm, preferably less than 1200 Nm, most preferably less than 1000 Nm.
- the principal behind this is that, if the stiffness of the outer shell greatly exceeds the stiffness of the bone which it is protecting, ligamentous damage can be caused. In the case of shin protection, cruciate ligament damage could be caused if the stiffness of the shell layer at the point of impact exceeds the stiffness of the tibia at the point of impact.
- the stiffties of at least a portion of the shell layer may be greater than 400 Nm, preferably greater than 600 Nm, most preferably greater than 800 Nm.
- the principle behind this is that, if the stiffness of the outer shell is much less than the stiffness of the bone which it is protecting, then the impact load is highly localised, thereby increasing the likelihood of fracture.
- the shell layer may comprise a glass fibre laminate, such as Twintex (RTM).
- Twintex (RTM) is particularly advantageous because it is cost effective, and can be formed at low temperature and pressure thereby facilitating convenient mass production.
- the shell layer may comprise a carbon fibre laminate. Such materials exhibit excellent stiffiiess to weight ratios.
- the thickness of the shell layer may be between 1 and 3 mm.
- Figure 1 is a graph of w 0 /w inf against x
- Figure 2 shows (a) the impact of an impactor against a plate on an elastic foundation, (b) a graph of load against time during the impact, and (c) a graph of plate displacement against time during the impact;
- Figure 3 is a graph of against w/1
- Figure 4 is a graph of against load P
- Figure 6 shows a shin pad of the present invention viewed a) from the front and b) from above;
- Figure 7 is a stress/strain plot for a typical foam
- Figure 8 is a stress/strain plot for 500 Solar Cover
- Figure 9 is a linearised stress/strain plot for 500 Solar Cover up to a strain value of 0.8.
- Figure 10 is a perspective view of a sample of 500 Solar Cover.
- the general solution for a circular plate on an infinite elastic foundation under a central point load (the general solution) can be expressed as:
- E p is the elastic modulus of the plate
- t is the thickness of the plate
- v is the Poisson's ratio
- k is the modulus of the foundation and is given by E/h for a finite foundation
- E is the elastic modulus of the foam and h is the thickness of the foam.
- f(a/ ) and /(a/1) are linear functions of the size of the plate divided by the characteristic length.
- the first criterion is that the foam must not crush by more than 80% of its thickness. It is vitally important that the foam does not compress to an extent that it loses its impact absorbing properties causing the leg itself to become the impact decelerator, increasing the stresses on the tibia and allowing the possibility of fracture.
- the second criterion considers the peak load the tibia can withstand without fracture.
- the most comprehensive tibial impact test results are provided by Kramer et al (Kramer, M, Burrow, K and Hegar, A, Fracture Mechanisms of Lower Legs under Impact Load, 17th Stepp Car Crash Conference 1973 SAE730966, 81-150).
- Kramer et al addressed the problem of pedestrians in urban traffic accidents. It is particularly comparable to many sporting injuries to the lower leg as it simulates car bumper impact on the distal third of the lower leg.
- Kramer et al reports the results of tests on over 200 subject cadavers over an age range of 20 to 90 years. Analysis of the data of Kramer et al suggests that a value of about 5000N may be considered a tolerable load. Re-arranging our first criterion
- the behaviour is dependent in the radius of the plate and then in order of reducing influence, E, D and h.
- the radius of the plate is defined by the average dimensions of the shin
- the stiffness of the outer shell is defined by the stiffness of the tibia (which is discussed in more detail below)
- the thickness of the foam padding (which as can be seen in equation (h) is not particularly influential) is controlled by practicality. This leaves us with the dominant design factor of E.
- a shin guard is generally shaped as shown in Figure 6, with a breadth that is smaller than its longitudinal length, the guard being curved in a plane transverse to the longitudinal axis. Such a design enables the guard to conform to the shape of the shin.
- Typical dimensions are length 260mm and breadth 120mm.
- a typical value of h is 6mm.
- the stiffness of the outer shell is equivalent to the stiffness of the tibia (El).
- the non-linearity of the stress strain curves for cellular materials provides a problem in defining a singular elastic modulus for the foams.
- Figure 7 shows the compressive stress curve for HL34, a closed cell foam material. The characteristics may be broken down into three distinguishing sections.
- Figure 8 shows the conventional stress-strain curve for 500 Solar Cover
- Figure 9 shows the data replotted as a straight line in order to derive an average elastic modulus.
- the average elastic modulus E for 500 Solar Cover is 0.359 MPa which is only slightly larger than the calculated optimum of 0.3 MPa.
- 500 Solar Cover also has the added advantage that unlike foams it will continue to absorb energy up to approximately 95% compression as shown in Figure 8. Thus, even if the applied load is such that the 500 Solar Cover is crushed beyond a strain value of 0.8, the shin pad will continue to absorb the impact.
- 500 Solar Cover is an example of a bubble wrap type material which comprises a plurality of compressible pockets 100.
- the pockets of 500 Solar Cover are air filled plastic bubbles (or "blisters") which are formed on a plastic substrate 102.
- the thickness of 500 Solar cover is 500 ⁇ m. This makes the material tougher than most bubble wrap products, and this is another advantage in the context of the present invention.
- other bubble wrap materials might be usefully employed in impact absorbing devices of the present invention. It might be possible to produce bubble wrap material in which the pockets are filled with a fluid, in order to improve or optimise compression properties.
- the shell material it is required that the stiffness to weight ratio is high to obtain the required stiffness while keeping the thickness and weight of the pad to a minimum.
- the optimum material to perform this task is a carbon fibre laminate.
- the "next best" material group is glass fibre laminates.
- the outstanding material is this group is called Twintex (RTM).
- This material is a fabric woven with commingled E glass and polypropylene rovings and is manufactured by Vetrotex International (Chambery Cedex, France) It is inexpensive and crucially will form to shape quickly at low temperature and pressure to allow ease of mass production.
- the outer shell is of the same stiffness as the tibia itself as there is evidence that ligamentous damage may also be caused by impact where the guard is stiffer than the tibia.
- Viano et al Viano, D, Culver, C, Haut, R, Melvin, J, Bender, M, Culver, R, and Levine, R, Bolster Impacts to the Knee and Tibia of Human Cadavers and an Anthropomorphic Dummy, Proceedings of the 22nd Stepp Car Crash Conference 1978, 347-357
- a bolster impact was carried out on the lower leg of seven cadavers (4 male, 3 female), all female cadavers exhibited fracture of the tibia and fibula.
- the required second moment of area for the prospective guard may be obtained by equating El t i b i a P er unit length to EI pad at the six intervals along the tibia.
- the required thickness of the guard using Twintex (RTM) may be calculated.
- Figure 6 shows an example of a shin pad according to the invention having a outer shell layer 60 and a compressible layer 62.
- the preferred material for the outer shell layer 60 is Twintex (RTM), and the preferred material for the compressible layer 62 is 500 Solar Cover.
- RTM Twintex
- a layer of breathable cloth 64 can be provided to eliminate irritation which can be caused by direct contact of the compressible layer 62 with the skin.
- equation (h) is replaced by the rather more complicated equation (i). Note that equation (i) specifically relates to the instance in which 80%) compression of the compressible layer occurs.
- Equation (h) i.e., with an outer shell stiffness equivalent to the stiffness of the tibia
- iterating equation (i) to solve for E produces an "optimum" E value of 0.16MPa.
- the exact shape of the shin pad shown in Figure 6 might be altered in numerous ways: for example, the breadth of the shin pad may taper from top to bottom. Such variations in overall shape are within the scope of the invention. Also, it is possible to use two layers of compressible material.
- equation (h) can be utilised to predict parameters for the design of impact absorbing devices for protecting other body parts.
- the maximum tolerable load for the human femur is about 8000N.
- This value together with "sensible" values relating inter alia to the dimensions of the human thigh, can be used to indicate required compression properties of the compressible layer.
Abstract
Description
Claims
Priority Applications (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
AU23865/01A AU2386501A (en) | 2000-01-07 | 2001-01-08 | Impact absorbing device |
EP01900188A EP1246547A1 (en) | 2000-01-07 | 2001-01-08 | Impact absorbing device |
Applications Claiming Priority (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
GBGB0000227.9A GB0000227D0 (en) | 2000-01-07 | 2000-01-07 | Impact absorbing device |
GB0000227.9 | 2000-01-07 |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
WO2001049139A1 true WO2001049139A1 (en) | 2001-07-12 |
Family
ID=9883259
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/GB2001/000052 WO2001049139A1 (en) | 2000-01-07 | 2001-01-08 | Impact absorbing device |
Country Status (4)
Country | Link |
---|---|
EP (1) | EP1246547A1 (en) |
AU (1) | AU2386501A (en) |
GB (1) | GB0000227D0 (en) |
WO (1) | WO2001049139A1 (en) |
Families Citing this family (1)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
CN107638682A (en) * | 2016-07-20 | 2018-01-30 | 丹阳市飞利健身器材有限公司 | A kind of ventilative elbow guard cover |
Citations (8)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US4700403A (en) * | 1982-08-17 | 1987-10-20 | Sports Marketing, Inc. | Protective cushion |
US4768234A (en) * | 1985-02-15 | 1988-09-06 | Yamamoto Kogaku Co., Ltd. | Ski glove with a protector |
FR2635650A1 (en) * | 1988-08-30 | 1990-03-02 | Thuasne & Cie | Article for locally protecting the body, particularly the human body, against impacts |
US5077837A (en) * | 1991-02-11 | 1992-01-07 | Dive N'surf, Inc. | Knee or elbow protector |
US5235715A (en) * | 1987-09-21 | 1993-08-17 | Donzis Byron A | Impact asborbing composites and their production |
GB2281024A (en) * | 1993-08-20 | 1995-02-22 | Mitre Sports International Lim | Limb protector/guard |
US5599290A (en) * | 1992-11-20 | 1997-02-04 | Beth Israel Hospital | Bone fracture prevention garment and method |
US5733647A (en) * | 1992-11-05 | 1998-03-31 | Polymer Innovations, Inc. | Insole |
-
2000
- 2000-01-07 GB GBGB0000227.9A patent/GB0000227D0/en not_active Ceased
-
2001
- 2001-01-08 AU AU23865/01A patent/AU2386501A/en not_active Abandoned
- 2001-01-08 EP EP01900188A patent/EP1246547A1/en not_active Withdrawn
- 2001-01-08 WO PCT/GB2001/000052 patent/WO2001049139A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation
Patent Citations (8)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US4700403A (en) * | 1982-08-17 | 1987-10-20 | Sports Marketing, Inc. | Protective cushion |
US4768234A (en) * | 1985-02-15 | 1988-09-06 | Yamamoto Kogaku Co., Ltd. | Ski glove with a protector |
US5235715A (en) * | 1987-09-21 | 1993-08-17 | Donzis Byron A | Impact asborbing composites and their production |
FR2635650A1 (en) * | 1988-08-30 | 1990-03-02 | Thuasne & Cie | Article for locally protecting the body, particularly the human body, against impacts |
US5077837A (en) * | 1991-02-11 | 1992-01-07 | Dive N'surf, Inc. | Knee or elbow protector |
US5733647A (en) * | 1992-11-05 | 1998-03-31 | Polymer Innovations, Inc. | Insole |
US5599290A (en) * | 1992-11-20 | 1997-02-04 | Beth Israel Hospital | Bone fracture prevention garment and method |
GB2281024A (en) * | 1993-08-20 | 1995-02-22 | Mitre Sports International Lim | Limb protector/guard |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
EP1246547A1 (en) | 2002-10-09 |
AU2386501A (en) | 2001-07-16 |
GB0000227D0 (en) | 2000-03-01 |
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