Turf going: how synthetic surface companies are striving for acceptance and safety, part 2.

In our research on synthetic surfacing in the November 2003 issue, a broad assortment of the industry's top leaders indicated that the main thrust of the current technology is to produce a surface that combines the playing comfort of a natural grass field with the durability of artificial turf.

They also pointed out that testing is an integral part of the manufacturing process for synthetic surfacing and how thorough and creative the surface companies are.

"We are working on the additional technology that tests point elasticity versus area elasticity," says Chuck Fleishman, chief marketing officer for Southwest Recreational Industries (SRI). "What is the shock-absorption value? How does one area affect another? I think we are trying to fine-tune that kind of thing a lot. Do you change the amount of fill? Do you change what the fill is? Do you change it by the pads? By the denier?"

Additional issues run the gamut from how much rubber or sand to use to shock-absorption characteristics and wet and dry traction conditions.

According to FieldTurf's John Gilman, his company is constantly inspecting, testing, and monitoring all of its fields, particularly its older models.

"Our R & D teams have developed new machinery to groom, aerate and help rejuvenate older fields to keep the performance consistent and expand their useful life span," Gilman says.

FieldTurf's R & D department, led by Jean Prevost, is currently focusing on a number of variables, including ways to improve maintenance of the system; methods to make the installations last far beyond the current life of artificial grass; ways to make the FieldTurf system removable--for convertible fields; and ways to provide better permanent markings such as numbers and logos.

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Gilman also reports that his company is involved with several new programs, including a new injury tracking system that will allow most of its installations to input injury data on a regular basis.

"[FieldTurf] is not a rug with rubber pellets," he says. "We are very careful about the improvements we make. All changes and innovations must improve the system, not just save money or allow us to install it faster or cheaper."

SRI goes all out on its safety. It employs a battery of tests to ensure their products' durability and longevity.

The first, an abrasion test, simulates traffic. Using an abrator--a large cleat-like nubbed machine that beats on the surface of the field for a length of time--SRI can determine how long the field is going to stand up in terms of fibrillation, whether or not the fibers fall apart or some break off.

Second, an Ultraviolet machine simulates the impact of the UV rays on a field, providing insight on how the fibers break down and if they do, how it will affect traction and eventually, G-Max.

Lastly, SRI play tests all its products in a controllable use situation, such as a practice.

Says Chuck Fleishman: "It all comes down to the design of the system and all the testing you do on the system before you go to market, such as the G-Max test and how the product is going to behave both in the short term and long term."

BRINGING RESULTS TO THE SURFACE

Somewhat puzzling is the absence of an industry standard for safety measures. There is no Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for infilled synthetic fields, if you will. Not even by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM).

"Very little is known," says Andy McNitt, Assistant Professor of Soil Science-Turfgrass at Penn State University, considered one of the preeminent authorities on turf, who attributes the lack of studies to the newness of the products. "I cannot give you a silver bullet and say, 'If you did this you'll be safe.' Because we really don't know what safe is."

Sprinturf's Hank Julicher says that the Synthetic Turf Council, based in Dalton, GA, the synthetic turf and carpet capital of the world, has done some preliminary findings. Sprinturf has the backing of NovaCare, the second largest healthcare provider in the U.S., as an unpaid partner, according to Julicher, that advises its clients to recognize the safety benefits of Sprinturf fields.

"NovaCare tested the different products out there and told us that our product is the most realistic in terms of perfectly conditioned natural grass with the least amount of injuries," Julicher says.

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John Gilman claims that FieldTurf conducts the only independent safety test in the industry. It hired Dr. Bill Barnhill, an orthopedic surgeon from Amarillo, TX, five years ago to monitor football injuries at five area high schools playing on FieldTurf, AstroPlay, and natural grass fields.

In August 2002, the Human Performance Laboratory at the U. of Calgary in Alberta, Canada conducted an Infilled Artificial Turf Project Testing Program that was based on an examination of 20 different artificial turf surfacing systems submitted by such interested artificial turf suppliers and manufacturers, including SRI, FieldTurf, Sprinturf, and Sportexe.

The HPL is one of the world leaders in basic and applied research related to human neuro-musculo-skeletal health and well-being from birth to old age. Professor Benno M. Nigg, director of the HPL and a faculty member of Kinesiology at the U. of Calgary, oversaw the testing.

Sportexe president Mark Nicholls indicated that the last time any human performance testing was done in the industry was back in 1982:

"The HPL decided that it was time to actually re-test everyone's surfaces and rank them," he stated. "That level of testing is very expensive and most of the people in our industry don't use human performance testing. They use mechanical testing."

The project assessed the cushioning of impact forces and frictional characteristics of 20 selected artificial playing surfaces. All but three of the surfaces tested were filled with various sand/rubber mixtures. Two different samples of each surface were prepared by the HPL and used for testing. It was assumed that the installed samples nominally represented typical on-site installations.

The testing was conducted on a sensored floor using athletes attached to multiple wire sensors who simulated hundreds of falls on the various surfaces, measuring the impact on elbows, knees, and shoulders.

According to the test results, a copy of which was obtained by Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director, each product was numerically coded and each company received its own results for both the cushioning and friction categories. The findings were rated highly recommended, recommended, and not recommended.

FieldTurf's stance is that testing should be done by machines as opposed to humans, somewhat along the lines of why crash-test dummies are in the driver's seat when car companies conduct safety testing.

"This data has so much wrong with it and seems so irrelevant to what players say and want, I can't really comment on it at all," says FieldTurf's John Gilman. "We have had industry consultants--experts who have the highly specialized knowledge to understand exactly what is right and wrong with this "study"--review this data and ranking system. They indicated serious drawbacks and other concerns with these tests."

Penn State's Andy McNitt begs to differ. "I think it's a good test because they used human subjects," he says.

McNitt, currently overseeing a paid product test being conducted at Penn State, asked the leading synthetic turf companies to submit product samples last fall.

"[The HPL test] is very different from mine because it used brand new material that was put together in the lab," says McNitt. "Another difference is that we're going to be outdoors over time and have wear on the samples. The HPL materials didn't have any wear on them."

McNitt's outdoor evaluation has been endorsed by Safer Athletic Field Environments (SAFE), which is the foundation for the Sports Turf Manager's Association (STMA) that provides research, educational programs, and scholarships geared to sports fields.

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The three testing plots for each surface will be conducted over an eight-year study, releasing results each year as McNitt goes forward.

McNitt announced the first preliminary results on December 10 at the New Jersey Turfgrass and Landscape Expo in Atlantic City. Further information will be released in January 2004 at the STMA Conference and Exhibition in San Diego. McNitt will then post data on the Penn State agronomy Web site.

According to McNitt, half the plot receives artificial wear akin to soccer-type wear at the rate of a soccer game a day. The other half of the plot does not receive any wear.

"We're using a machine that poses artificial-type wear," says McNitt. "When the machine was built, it was correlated to the number of [cleat] dimples, between the hash marks on the 40-yard line of an NFL game. It's not as quite as aggressive as a football game. I think it duplicates more of a soccer game."

McNitt has visited a few synthetic fields that people complained were hard because they believed that synthetic surfaces require no maintenance. His suggestion: remember to groom them.

"You can drop a G-Max number by 20 usually by just going out and grooming the field," says McNitt. "There are different ways to groom. We use a machine that has series of star-shaped thin metal blades, about a 1/8th of an inch in thickness. The blades are on a roller that goes down into the granules and works them loose.

"We then go over the surface with a power broom that stands the fibers back up. If you don't do that, the fibers will eventually get matted down and the surface will become a little bit harder."

ADDING RESULT TO INJURY

Every company claims that its product produces fewer injuries. How can such a claim be validated, especially in professional football, where immovable objects are always running into irresistible forces?

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Says SRI's Chuck Fleishman: "Because of the collision nature of the sport, it's hard to always identify which component, if any, was a factor in a particular injury."

When asked if synthetic infilled fields are safe to play on, McNitt was quite candid in his response:

"You can't make a blanket statement like that. An athlete interacts with a surface either by falling on it or running on it with a cleated shoe. Those are two things that we want to look into. We want to look at surface hardness over time and what happens as you wear the field.

"We don't have all the data in yet, but preliminary data shows that these fields are very comparable to natural turf in hardness."

Can a company guarantee that its synthetic surface reduces the chance of injury? Not exactly. The NFL, which releases weekly injury reports, doesn't keep a year-end breakdown of total injuries, according to Vince Casey in the league's media relations department.

There is no official documentation of injuries caused on infilled surfaces. In the 1980's, the NFL did a 10-year study on the older artificial surfaces that indicated that they produced slightly more knee and ankle injuries than natural turf.

Aside from testing wear, McNitt's plot test will also evaluate traction.

There is a theory that it's not necessarily the amount of traction a surface endures, but how quickly it occurs when the foot interacts with the surface.

"With the old artificial turf, the peak happened very, very early in the traction curve," McNitt. "The biomechanics people tell me that if it happens very early, the joints will take most of the shock. If it happens later in the curve, as is the case with natural turf, the athlete will have time to react and have the shock taken up in the muscles instead of the joints.

"We're trying to figure out where the new infills fall: Do they act more like the old synthetic turf or do they act more like natural turf?"

Stay tuned.