Impact Resistance and Comfort Properties of Textile Structures for Sportswear

Abstract

Protective padding is commonly used in many sporting activities to prevent impact related injuries. In rugby, shoulder pads absorb and disperse the force and energy of an impact with a playing surface or another player. Although the majority of the commercial shoulder pads currently available can reduce the impact force during a front-on tackle, they provide limited amount of thermal comfort to the wearer. In this research, flexible textile structures were designed and investigated for their potential to effectively dissipate the force of impact over a wider area, thus reducing the risk of injury. The impact resistance of these textile structures placed over a body simulant was compared against commercial foam pads using a’ drop test’ method. The results indicated that all the flexible textile structures reduced the impact force. Although their protection level was not as high as the commercial foam, the textile structures showed a higher level of thermal comfort as measured by air permeability, thermal resistance and water vapor resistance. The results were analyzed using oneway ANOVA followed by post-hoc analysis using IBM SPSS software. The Post-hoc analysis showed a significant difference among the test results of various fabrics for impact absorption, air permeability, thermal resistance and water vapor resistance, which are also discussed in this paper.