Thermal Transfer Analysis for Sports Footwear, for Performance Athletes, during Volleyball Training

The purpose of this paper is a social one, to present various experimental thermal analyses of sports footwear to identify the areas that ensure the best foot ventilation for comfort in movement. The mechanical properties of the analyzed footwear were determined on the Nano Indenter Agilent G200, with the help of which Young’s modulus was determined according to ISO 14577. Thermography measurements were performed at the Oradea University Sports Club. The FLIR SC 640 thermal imaging camera was used, which is a portable thermographic scanning equipment. The measurements were performed on eight athletes (subjects) in a volleyball training session, wearing sports footwear (Asics and Mizuno). Thermographic recordings were made during training at five different times: moment zero (before the start of training), moment one (2 min of training), moment two (5 min of training), moment three (15 min of training), and moment four (at the end of the volleyball training session). For the other three subjects, although having different models of the same sports footwear, the analysis of the thermal distribution values shows they are within the minimum and maximum limits of the five subjects analyzed in the paper. Based on the thermographic recording values obtained, a mathematical model was determined using polynomial regression to predict temperature values outside the range of the experimental data. In the present paper, research was carried out in order to identify the thermal variations of indoor sports shoes used in volleyball training so as to detect the heat exchange between the foot and the outdoor environment. Whether we are talking about winter sports or sports that take place in other atmospheric conditions, the comfort given by the optimal temperature at the level of each body segment is certainly reflected in the level of performance achieved.