ABSTRACT
The use of long pile third generation artificial turf is becoming very popular for sports that are usually played on natural grass, particularly soccer and rugby. Artificial Athlete Berlin, described in the German Standard DIN 18032, has been most widely used test to measure the shock absorbency of sports surfaces such as basketball playing floors and running tracks. By accepting the inappropriateness of the standard test, a new testing rig was developed to mimic a high impact load similar to human sporting actions. The new high loading test succeeded in illustrating clear differences for shock attenuation property among 3-g turfs. The shock absorbency of natural turfs could have been an important target property for artificial turfs. Overall, the 3-g turfs with rubber and rubber/sand mixed infills showed a similar peak loads to that of the well maintained natural turf. However, the change of natural turfs indicated that substantial gaps still exist between natural and 3-g turfs for their stress-strain properties.
