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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Pounding the Pavement

Do your athletic shoes rebound the way you expect? Extreme sports activities, such as basketball, skateboarding or even running the Boston Marathon, are placing more challenging demands on today’s athletic shoes. These activities can result in impact forces at more than 10 times one’s bodyweight.


Shoe designers investigate the impact and rebound performance of different materials and structures. In addition to normal, daily uses, our customers are under pressure to develop new designs of sports shoes with advanced air cushioning, gel-filled capsules, or complex sole structures that offer superior technical performance.

ASTM F1614 "Standard Test Method for Shock Attenuating Properties of Materials Systems for Athletic Footwear” includes evaluating the energy returned by a shoe during impact, the amount of cushioning provided by different shoe and sole designs, and the long-term fatigue behavior of the shoe. Read more how our ElectroPuls™ Systems test to ASTM F1614.

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