Introduction: Sport surfaces are one of the predominant aspects of safety and efficiency as a determinant factor of ground. Vertical deformation of sport surfaces is a biomechanical parameter related to probability of athlete’s injuries. Artificial Athlete Stuttgart is an apparatus applied for measuring of this parameter due to the standards. In this study, an alternative method is investigated for extracting this parameter.
Methodology: In this study, a finite element model included a part of human lower limb and a standard sport surface was developed. For preparation of lower limb model, CT scan images of a 25 year old male were transformed into a three dimensional model via Mimics software. Viscoelastic behavior of the sport surface was extracted by compression stress-relaxation tests with various strain rates to import in the finite element model. Abaqus analytical software was utilized to simulate the athlete landing. The weight of athlete, height of landing and solution time were considered 60 Kg, 30 cm and 0.01 s respectively.
Results: The value of vertical deformation was extracted over time after the landing. The vertical deformation of the sport surface reached its maximum value in 0.008 seconds after the contact which for forefoot and heal contact area was 2.73 and 2.36 millimeter respectively.
Discussion: Results present an excellent confirmation between the proposed and Artificial Athlete Stuttgart apparatus. The maximum of vertical deformation obtained by the proposed model was close to the value reported by standard (3 mm) which the sport surface meets. Subsequently, the Artificial Athlete Stuttgart apparatus can be superseded properly by the proposed model to extract the vertical deformation parameter of sport surfaces.