University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Interaction between gloves and ball surfaces in afl and rugby

Oomen, Matthijs A. (2012) Interaction between gloves and ball surfaces in afl and rugby.

[img] PDF
6MB
Abstract:In Australian Football players are allowed to wear gloves to keep their hand safe. The gloves used are of different types and they are made as sticky as possible, resulting in these players having an advantage over other players when catching a ball. The AFL now wants to know how much the players benefit and this has resulted in this research in quantifying the advantage when wearing these gloves. Ten different types of gloves have been tested on four different surfaces. Some of the gloves tested have an all silicon palm of the hand, while others are made out of leather or have a thin silicon pattern on a spandex palm. The tests were done by pulling a glove over a surface mounted on a forceplate. This forceplate measures normal and frictional force during the measurement and from that data the coeficient of friction can be calculated as the fraction of both. To compare the results and to broaden the research, five of the gloves were also tested on ten different rugby surfaces ranging from smooth panels to different pimple patterns. Because the gloves show signs of wear quickly, it was decided to also test them in old and new conditions. All these tests lead to the most important conclusion that for AFL a few gloves make a significant difference in performance, all being gloves with a majority of silicone in the palm. It is however highly dependent on the hand that is tested, because there were two different hands tested and they both show different behavior. This can of course be explained by the uniqueness of every hand. Gloves are not of significant use when one wants to perform better in rugby, because both hands tested already have a high coeficient of friction. Another important conclusion to be drawn is that the silicon gloves are performing better in dry conditions and the leather gloves slightly better in the wet.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:52 mechanical engineering
Programme:Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63952
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page