Micromechanical behaviour of turfgrass for sports fields

Abstract

Unlike artificial turf, natural turf does not cause injuries to skin when sportsmen slide on it. Nowadays, this is an important limitation for extending the use of artificial turf and a considerable effort in research is being made. IVIA has started a research project to characterize the mechanical properties of natural turf that may provide its excellent behaviour for sports practice. In this work, leaves of four different species of natural turf were subjected to tensile and friction tests. Differences among species and the relationship between mechanical properties and microstructure are studied.