Effects of Hardness and Thickness of Polyurethane Foam Midsoles on Bending Properties of the Footwear

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In sports shoe design to achieve better athletics performance, the bending stiffness of a footwear is an important parameter. Its bending stiffness is mostly dependent on its midsole material. Specifically, hardness and thickness oft he midsole material are the major factors on its bending stiffness. Hence, this study focuses on studying the effect of hardness and thickness on bending stiffness of sports shoes by using polyurethane(PU) foam midsole. The results from the experiments show that the bending moment increases as the bending angle increases. Increased hardness and increased thickness of mid sole also cause a greater bending moment of the sports shoe, respectively. Moreover, the effect of hardness and thickness of midsole on bending moment measured with assembled shoes is much greater than the one measured with midsoles alone. Therefore, low bending stiffness of the midsole material can not be ignored in shoe design because it could result in high bending stiffness of an assembled shoe.