VALENCIA, 20 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Institute of Biomechanics (IBV) has promoted the CoRe project, putting the user at the center of the design and development process of products, services and environments, and where, using agile methodologies, it involves them from the first phases of the design to the last. obtaining the final product. In this way, IBV investigates how to improve the comfort and performance of products in different areas.
The field of sports products stands out for searching and designing products that optimize the athlete’s performance without penalizing their comfort, the IBV reported in a statement. “It is striking that this fact is not taken into account in other traditional productive sectors in which one of these factors, comfort or performance, has taken precedence, leaving aside the other,” they said. With this project, IBV seeks to apply the same philosophy to the rest of the industrial sectors, focusing research in the sports facilities and footwear sectors in 2023.
In this sector of sports facilities, the evaluation of playing surfaces usually focuses on the interaction of the person and, in certain sports, on the interaction of the ball with the surface; for example, in the case of artificial grass for football, tennis or paddle tennis. This evaluation is based on carrying out “expensive” regulatory tests that require equipment and knowledge that greatly limit their massive application. “These limitations have as a side effect the lack of a low-cost and easy-to-obtain objective criterion to know the state of wear of the playing surfaces remotely,” they indicated.
The “agile” methodologies developed by the IBV to monitor the state of the artificial grass will focus on the characterization of the field through images taken with a mobile phone, using a tool that guides the user “in a simple way” through the different steps that must be followed, “being enormously useful both for professionals in the field of sports facility management and for the companies in charge of their maintenance,” they have stressed. In this sense, the IBV collaborates with the companies CESPEVAL and ITURF in identifying those aspects that allow a greater fit with the needs of the sector.
Additionally, for the sports facilities sector, the adaptation of methodologies will be sought for the evaluation of the postural interaction between the person and the product/environment, “allowing a rapid and optimal assessment of products that implies significant savings in associated costs”, They have highlighted.
In this sense, the IBV works hand in hand with the company FANBASE to study the viability of incorporating these methodologies to the sports furniture sector, specifically stadium seats. Specifically, the objective is to go beyond the regulatory safety and ergonomic tests and evaluate aspects such as the thermal comfort of the spectators, “so important in sporting events where the seats are exposed to the sun and ambient heat,” they explained. .
On the other hand, in the footwear sector, products with new properties, new constructions and new functionalities that combine comfort and performance have emerged in recent years. An example of this is sports footwear, where work is being done on technologies such as carbon plates that improve the reactivity of the footprint (performance), while maintaining sole materials that maximize cushioning (comfort).
However, the tools to measure and interpret these aspects have not advanced. “Precisely for this reason, the CoRe project seeks to develop methodologies capable of evaluating as a whole the comfort and performance provided by new trends in innovation,” they noted. At a physical-mechanical level, the bases of these methodologies will be new tests and parameters capable of representing in a more faithful and updated way the new functionalities of footwear, working, for example, on different approaches to measuring energy return.
To achieve this, the IBV collaborates with the companies PANTER and SATORISAN. At a biomechanical and physiological level, the new methodologies will allow analyzing their effect on the user, studying different approaches to measure energy in the joints or oxygen consumption, and exploring the most optimal alternatives, in each case, from the point of view of measurement and interpretation of results.
The CoRe project (IMDEEA/2023/62) is financed by the 2023 aid program of the Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE), aimed at technology centers in the Valencian Community for the development of non-economic R&D projects carried out in collaboration with companies; It has a planned duration of two years and is financed by the European Union.
