Facilities
We have a wide range of facilities and equipment available for research, consultancy, and education activities including
Biomechanics laboratory
A biomechanics laboratory equipped with
- Eagle Digital eight camera online motion capture and analysis system
- Motion Analysis Corporation complete with OrthoTrak and KinTrak data processing software
- Kistler floor-mounted force platforms, portable Kistler force platform, and Kistler Gaitway force measuring treadmill
- RSscan pressure plates and pressure measuring insoles
- two Redlake Imaging Motion Scope high speed video cameras capable of filming at up to 2000 frames per second
- 1,500 Lux lighting and complete black-out facilities
Motion capture
We have a range of motion capture solutions that include
- Polhemus Liberty 240/8 electromagnetic motion tracking system
- Vision Research Phantom high-speed cameras, two v4.3 (black and white), one Miro (colour)
- two Prosilica GC655 90fps machine vision cameras, one 200fps machine vision camera
- XSENS Xbus Kit, with five MTx motion tracking sensors
Environmental chamber
The British Olympic Association (BOA) approved chamber simulates the climate of almost any country in the world. Temperatures can reach +40 degrees Celsius and -20 degrees Celsius, with humidity between one and 99 per cent. The chamber can be used to
- test clothing tolerance under different climatic conditions
- test the influence of climatic conditions on the performance of sports equipment
- study the effects of enduring extreme environments on sports people
- look at the effects of temperature on work-related tasks in the occupational setting
Computing
Specialist computational facilities include
- high performance computing cluster, SGI Altix, eight compute nodes, 64 cores, 128GB RAM
- dedicated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workstation (ANSYS Fluent solver, Ensight post-processing)
- computer aided engineering workstations (Pro/E, ANSYS LS Dyna, Geomagic Studio, Rhino)
- Matlab and LabView software for developing custom data collection and analysis protocols for specialist projects
Non-contact laser scanning
A reverse engineering and measurement facility comprising
- Metris ModelMaker D100 3D non-contact laser scanner
- Geomagic Studio and Qualify, surfacing and inspection software
Experimentation
We have a number of experimental laboratories, and a range of test equipment including
- impact rig with a maximum drop height of 2m and a range of customisable hammers
- playing surface rolling profile characterisation equipment
- Clegg impact hammer
- bowlers customised for different sports ball applications
- high speed impact test chamber
- fully portable lightweight air cannon
- light gates
Workshops
We have an in-house fully equipped manufacturing and prototype workshop, and an electronics workshop. This allows us to react to the client's needs and ensure full customer confidentiality.
These facilities are capable of
- wide ranging service of in-house fabrication and high quality precision engineering
- capabilities to work with a wide range of materials, including bulk metals, plastics, and aerospace grade alloys
- a service from creation of an initial prototype through to liaison with manufacturers for full production
- development of small scale instrumentation systems
We can also access the extensive range of additional workshop, machining, and prototyping facilities available at Sheffield Hallam University, and have extensive industrial contacts within the Yorkshire region.
