Evaluation of footfallinduced vibrations and their importance in a biomechanics laboratory

Abstract

The ground reaction forces of the footfall are usually measured in biomechanics laboratories, using a force plate. The accelerations of the floor, in which the force plate is embedded, have to be limited, as they have a major influence on the accuracy of the force measurements. A floor designed to accommodate a force platform in a biomechanical laboratory of the University Hospital in Tübingen, Germany, has been investigated for footfall-induced vibrations, in order to determine their influence on the precision of the force plate measurements. For that, field measurements as well as finite element analysis have been performed. As a result, the measuring error of the force plate can be computed for diverse scenarios.