Design of a force acquisition system for high-energy short-duration impacts

This paper describes a novel force acquisition system capable of measuring the force profiles of high-energy short-duration impacts. This force acquisition system was used to test dynamically a cricket leg guard and to create a contour map of the peak transmitted forces across the garment's surface. The cricket leg guard was found to provide most protection in the central shin and knee regions, areas most likely to be impacted normally and so to receive the highest-energy impacts. The use of this system will enable a dynamic test procedure to be developed to mimic impact conditions encountered during a game, allowing optimization of cricket pad designs for specific impacts.