• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2015

Objective : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect for running shoes with resilience of midsole on biomechanical properties. Methods : 10 healthy males who had no history of injury in the lower extremity with an average age of 26.5 year(SD=1.84), height of 172.22 cm(SD=4.44) and weight of 67.51 kg(SD=6.17) participated in this study. All subjects ran on the treadmill wearing three different running shoes. Foot pressure data was collected using Pedar-X system(Novel Gmbh, Germany) operating at 100 Hz. Surface EMG signals for biceps femoris, rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, medial lateralis, tibialis anterior, medial gastrocnemius, soleus and peroneus longus were acquired at 1000 Hz using Bignoli 8 System(Delsys Inc., USA). To normalize the difference of the magnitude of muscle contractions, it was expressed as a percentage relative to the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). The impact resilience of the midsole data was collected using Fastcam SA5 system(Photron Inc., USA). Collected data was analyzed using One-way ANOVA in order to investigate the effects of each running shoes. Results : TPU midsole was significantly wider in contact area than EVA, TPE midsole in midfoot and higher in EMG activity than EVA midsole at biceps femoris. TPE midsole was significantly wider in contact area than EVA midsole in rearfoot and higher in peak pressure than EVA midsole in forefoot. EVA midsole was significantly higher in EMG activity than TPU midsole at tibia anterior. In medial resilience of midsoles, TPE midsole was significantly higher than EVA, TPU midsole. Conclusion : TPU midsole can reduce the load on the midfoot effectively and activate tibialis anterior, biceps femoris to give help to running.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2010

During running, the human body experiences repeated impact force between the foot and the ground. The impact force is highly associated with injury of the lower extremity, comfort and running performance. Therefore, shoemakers have developed shoes with various midsole properties to prevent the injury of lower extremity, improve the comfort and enhance the running performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate influence of midsole hardness on shock absorption along the human body during running. Thirty two expert runners consented to participate in the study and ran at a constant speed with three different pairs of shoes with soft, medium and hard midsole respectively. Using accelerometers we measured the shock absorption from shoe heel to cervical vertebral column. In conclusion, at the shoe heel, shock was the greatest with the hard midsole. However because most shock was absorbed between shoe heel and the knee, notable influence of midsole was not detected upper knee. At shoe heel, regardless of midsole hardness, the shock of younger female was the greatest. The authors expect to apply this result for providing a guideline for utilizing proper midsole hardness for manufacturing age and gender-specific shoe.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.167-172
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• 2019

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of midsole hardness of running shoe on muscle fatigue and impact force during distance running. Method: Ten healthy college recreational runners who were performing distance running at least three times a week participated in this experiment. They were asked to run for 15 minutes in the treadmill at 10 km/h with running shoes having three different types of midsole hardness (Soft, Medium, Hard). EMG signal and insole pressure were collected during the first and last one minute for each running trials. Data were analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures. Results: Midsole hardness did not affect the consistency of stride length. For the median frequency of the EMG signal, only VL was affected by midsole hardness; that of medium was greater than other midsoles (p<.05). The loading rate of impact forces increased by midsole hardness (p<.01). Conclusion: Although soft midsole could attenuate impact forces at heel contact, it might have a negative effect on the fatigue of muscle which could decelerate the body after heel contact. Therefore, it is necessary to select the optimum hardness of midsole carefully for both reduction impact forces and muscle fatigue.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.269-272
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• 1997

It is need to inspect a injected E.V.A midsole automatically in shoe manufacture. We applied image processing technology to inspect a injected E.V.A midsole. Captured image by CCD camera was processed with smoothing and edge detection. We compensated error of length from processed image of gauge block and error by bending strain with the measurement method of interval length for midsole image.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.224-228
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• 2001

This paper presents the analyzing method of golf shoes and shows design technique including air-cycled pump in the midsole. The golf shoes are analyzed by using the finite element method for the optimization in design by considering the configuration of midsole and outsole, which compose the golf shoes. Also the optimum size of air-cycled pump in the midsole is examined. Standard human pressure values for boundary conditions are adoped for the finite element analysis. The unknown constants of the strain energy function of Ogden type are observed in accordance with the axial tension test. By using the commercial FEM software for nonlinear analysis, MARC V7.3, the strains and the values of volume change for midsole and outsole are obtained, respectively. As a result, it can be concluded that these values in the midsole and the outsole are different depending on the characteristic of elastomer. More precise investigation about the assembly of two parts, which represent midsole and outsole, is under studying.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.379-386
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• 2009

During running, the human body experiences repeated impact force between the foot and the ground. The impact force is highly associated with injury of the lower extremity, comfort and running performance. Therefore, shoemakers have developed shoes with various midsole properties to prevent the injury of lower extremity, improve the comfort and enhance the running performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of midsole hardness on vertical ground force and heel strike angle during men's and women's running. Five male and five female expert runners consented to participate in the study and ran at a constant speed with three different pairs of shoes with soft, medium and hard midsole respectively. In conclusion, regardless of gender, there was ill significant difference among three shoes in maximum vertical ground reaction force, impact force peak and stance time. However, the loading time decreased and the loading rate increased as the midsole became harder. Female subjects showed more sensitive reaction with respect to the midsole hardness, while male subjects showed subtle difference. The authors expect to apply this results for providing a guideline for utilizing proper midsole hardness of gender-specific shoe.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.109-114
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• 2005

In this study, to develop a flash-less mold for forming of shoe-midsole, experiments and forming analysis were carried out. In order to reduce the extra-materials, the final preform has been modified by the experiment of pressure forming at the room temperature. To measure the contact status of parting surface of mold, the pressure film has been used. The midsole mold of the wedge structure type has been developed for the improvement of the contact status. The vertical pressing mold structure was introduced for the production of a flash-less midsole. By the investigation, flash of shoe-midsole was considerably reduced.

• Proceedings of the Society of Korea Industrial and System Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.291-296
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• 2002

The midsole hardness of athletic footwear affects capability of absorbing impact shock and controls rearfoot movement during running and walking. The prior studies were focused on examining the proper hardness of footwear for rearfoot movement or to finding effective hardness for absorbing impact shock. The displacements of maximal Achilles tendon angle described a amount of pronation motion is decreased when medial hardness of midsole is large more than lateral. Increasing hardness of footwear midsole are effected to reduce maximum and intial pronation angle, but declined the ability of impact shock during heelstrike. For determination of effectiveness hardness of midsole, therefore, the study that makes a compromise between rearfoot movement and absorbing impact during footstrike must be performed. The purpose of this study is to examine quantitative values of rearfoot control and absorbing impact shock with different hardness of medial and lateral midsole on heel portion. The results are useful to define biomechanical hardness of midsole for developing running shoes. As variable for impact shock, accelerations onto shank and knee are measured during 4 running speeds (5, 7, 9, 11km/h). Also, maximum and $10\%$ pronation angle (Achilles tendon angle) were measured using high-speed camera.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.125-130
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• 2006

To understand the effect of midsole on the bending stiffness of footwear, bending moment is studied with various hardness and thickness of polyurethane(PU) and poly(ethyl one-co-vinylacetate)(EVA) foams which composed in footwear midsole. The initial bending moment of footwear was appeared at $19^{\circ}$ on bending angle of footwear, and this bending angle was not depend on thickness and hardness of midsole. The bending moments of footwear were also increased with increase of the hardness and thickness of misole which were composed in footwear. Increased hardness and increased thickness of foam and midsole also cause a greater bending moment of the sports shoe, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1078-1084
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• 2011

In design of sport footwear, bending stiffness of its toe part is an important factor though it can be hardly measured. This paper introduces a device for measuring the bending stiffness. The device is simply designed with aluminum frames, one AC motor, two load-cells, one encoder and control hardwares. The mechanism measuring the bending moment of a shoe is described. Then, it was used to observe how the midsole material and design of a sports shoe affect on its bending stiffness. For the experiments, various specimens prepared, where each midsole of the specimens is different in terms of material, thickness and hardness. With those specimens, experiments were performed by using the device and then the bending stiffness was computed by applying the least square curve fitting after the bending moment data were measured. The specimen with Poly-urethane(PU) midsole has the higher bending stiffness than the one with Phylon(PH) midsole, and the midsole thickness affects more on the bending stiffness than the midsole hardness. Based on those results, it can be concluded that the measurement device can provide consistent bending stiffness data to sports footwear and the bending stiffness of a footwear measured by the developed device can be used as a major parameter in the footwear design.