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Abstract

Abstract Female gymnasts often place un-physiological extreme repetitive loading on their bodies during the common maneuvers characteristic of this sport. Thus, it was necessity to provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of impact behavior of feet of gymnasts. The response of fracture or injury due to jumping is also important in designing safety equipment related to sports. A linear elastic fracture mechanics approach has been used for this analysis. Typical behavior of crack growth rate for a force of F= 6.1 KN and m being 1.25, revealed that 6 landings were sufficient to initiate micro-fracture of bone due to landing after vault in gymnasts and for m being 1.5, 2 landings were enough to initiate the micro-fracture in the bone of a gymnasts. The results of this study also indicated that the number of landings for micro-fracture in the bone of gymnasts decreased as the value of m increased. The data predicted the development of an in vivo stress-fractures in gymnasts even before it occurred. It revealed that micro-fracture due to landing of gymnasts after vaulting was sensitive to number of landings. Magnitude of m is inversely proportional to the strength of bone. Shoes and other foot/ankle supports also reduce the crack propagation in bone. The model was of great significance in computational aspects of bone remodeling, fracture fixation of bone, and shoe design etc.

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