• 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 International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.562-565
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• 2013

The fact that flip-flops, one of many different types of unstable shoes, are light and relatively easy to put on, accounts for their popularity among people. But because flip-flops rely heavily on the support of a single thong between your first and second toes, they impose a huge amount of pressure onto lower leg. Thus in the following experiment we tried to examine the different effects of flip-flops and running shoes in terms of their effect on muscle activity and fatigue of tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius during walking. In order to measure an electromyogram we used Free EMG system. 10 men and 10 women in running shoes ran on treadmills for 15 minutes at 4.8km/h, 2 days later the same experiment was carried out, but this time, in flip-flops. p value turned out to be greater than .05 and thus there was no considerable difference between the effects of flip-flops and running shoes on muscle activity and fatigue during walking. Therefore we conclude that despite the fact that flip-flops are considered unstable, their effects on muscle activity and fatigue of tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius are negligible.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.89-97
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyze the foot-pressure distribution of Tennis Shoes for assessing their functionality. 10 university male students (shoe size: 265mm) who had no history of injury in the lower extremity and a normal gait pattern participated in this study. Four types of tennis shoes, most popular in Korea (A, B, C & D company), were selected and tested. Using the PEDAR-X system and PEDAR-X insoles, 4 different motion stages were analyzed for the foot-pressure distribution: (a) straight running; (b) c-cut($45^{\circ}$ left turn running; (c) forehand stroke; and (d) backhand stroke. Results revealed that in all stages, there were no statistically significant differences among the types of shoes; however, descriptive statistics indicated that functionality of shoe types was somewhat different depending on the type of stages. The order in functionality found was C>A>B>D.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.169-170
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the smoothness of the gait pattern according to shoe, walking speed, and slope. Eleven male university students used three types(running shoes, mounting climbing boots, elevated forefoot walking shoes) of shoes at various walking speeds(1.19, 1.25, 1.33, 1.56, 1.78, 1.9, 2.0, 2.11, 2.33m/s) and gradients (0, 3, 6, 10%) on a treadmill. Three-dimensional motion analysis (Motion Analysis Corp, Santa Rosa, CA, USA) was conducted with 4 Falcon high speed cameras. The results showed that elevated forefoot walking shoes had the lowest value of normalized jerk at the heel, which means that elevated forefoot walking shoes had the smoothest walking pattern at the heel. In contrast, elevated forefoot walking shoes had greater normalized jerk at the center of mass (COM) at most walking speeds, which means that the smoothness of gait pattern at the center of mass is the lowest for the elevated forefoot walking shoes. This movement at the COM might even have a beneficial effect of activating muscles in the back and abdomen more than other shoes.

• Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1084-1089
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze the difference of the ankle joint movements during landing. Seven adult males voluntarily participated in the study and the average foot size of the subjects was 269.8 mm. Image analysis equipment and the ground reaction force plate (landing type) was used to measure th kinetic variables. As a result of this study, it was confirmed that the vertical ground reaction force peak point appeared once in the barefoot with forefoot, while two peak points appeared in the barefoot and functional shoe foot with rear foot landing. About ankle angle, fore foot landing ankle angle, the average with bare foot landing was $-10.302^{\circ}$ and the average with functional shoe foot landing was $-2.919^{\circ}$. Also about rear foot landing, ankle angle was $11.648^{\circ}$ with bare foot landing and $15.994^{\circ}$ with functional shoe landing. The fore foot landing, ankle joint force analysis produced 1423.966N with barefoot and 1493.264N with functional shoes. But, the rear foot landing, ankle joint force analysis produced 1680.154N with barefoot and 1657.286N with functional shoes. This study suggest that the angle of ankle depends on the landing type and bare foot running/functionalized shod running, and ankle joint forces also depends on landing type.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.111-119
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate muscle activity and gait pattern in lower limb depending on the outsole of heel rockers. Fifteen healthy men volunteered for this experiment. Each subject performed totally three trails with two pairs of different heel rocker shoes and a pair of normal running shoes at speed of 1.33m/s for 1 minute during walking on a treadmill. Kinematic data gathered in 100Hz was recorded and analyzed by using the 3D motion capture system to measure the trunk tilt and joint angle of the right lower limb. And the lower extremity muscle activities were simultaneously recorded in 1000Hz and assessed by using EMG. The statistical analysis was the one-way ANOVA with the repeated measures to compare among the three kinds of shoes. The level of statistical significance for all tests was 0.05. Joint angle of lower limb was showed statistically significant different in MST(hip joint), LHS(ankle joint), and RTO(knee and ankle joint). Muscle activity of rectus femoris and biceps femoris was statistically increased in both heel rocker shoes during gait cycle on treadmill. The maximum peak time of tibialis anterior in the negative heel rocker showed the delay of approximately 23.8%time than normal shoes. Gait pattern variability of the negative heel rocker was increased in the first half of the stance phase and the variability of the positive heel rocker was increased in the terminal stance phase. In Conclusion, stability was decreased in between joints of lower limb on positive heel rocker than negative heel rocker. This study found that there were different joint angle, muscle activity, gait pattern and coordinate system of the lower limb in each kind of shoes. These unstability affected the lower extremity and the whole body. A further study has to be continued with study of rehabilitation and exercise for a long-term.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.95-103
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• 2006

Wheel treads of E.M.U. are usually under a heavy thermal load by brake frictional heat between wheel and brake shoe and damaged by repeated thermal and mechanical loads. To examine the cause of wheel tread damage of E.M.U.'s in service running, a systematic approach has been used. This study is composed of three parts. Frictional heat analysis was conducted in the first part by finite element method. Two kinds of brake shoes in service were considered. In the second part, experimental study was carried out on a brake dynamometer. Temperatures were measured for the two brake shoes. And experimental study in service running E.M.U.'s was performed. Wheel and brake shoe temperatures were measured by using thermocouples and temperature indicating strips. Finally metallurgical characteristics were examined by a SEM/EDS and the cause of the wheel damage was analyzed. It seems that aggregated ferrous component is a main cause of the wheel tread damage.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.88-93
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• 2005

Frictional heat generates when the brake shoes are in contact with wheel tread under high pressure for EMU's speed control, stopping, and deceleration. Such a frictional heat has a significant effect on the wheel tread. In order to analyze the characteristics of frictional heat and measure the amount of the generated heat, tests by using a brake dynamometer and for running vehicles are carried out. In addition, finite element analysis is performed to simulate the temperature distribution and thermal analysis of the brake shoes. Through the tests and the simulations, it is found that the problems by temperature increase at tread braking are verified.