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Toe caps are one of the most important components in safety footwear, but have a significant contribution to the weight of the shoe. Efforts have been made to replace steel toe caps by polymeric ones, since they are lighter, insulated and insensitive to magnetic fields. Nevertheless, polymeric solutions require larger volumes, which has a negative impact on the shoe’s aesthetics. Therefore, safety footwear manufacturers are pursuing the development of an easy, low-cost and reliable solution to optimize this component. In this work, a solid mechanics toolbox built in the open-source computational library, OpenFOAM®, was used to simulate two laboratory standard tests (15 kN compression and 200 J impact tests). To model the polymeric material behavior, a neo-Hookean hyper-elasto-plastic material law with J2 plastic criteria was employed. A commercially available plastic toe cap was characterized, and the collected data was used for assessment purposes. Close agreements, between experimental and simulated values, were achieved for both tests, with an approximate error of 5.4% and 6.8% for the displacement value in compression and impact test simulations, respectively. The results clearly demonstrate that the employed open-source finite volume computational models offer reliable results and can support the design of toe caps for the R&D footwear industry., This work was funded by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT-Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UIDB/05256/2020; UIDP/05256/2020 and FAMEST-Footwear, Advanced Materials, Equipment’s and Software Technologies (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-024529).

Several classical dance complex movements, such as pointe, require body weight to be supported properly to avoid risk of foot injury. Regarding the choice of toe cap for pointe shoes, it is unclear which type can better alleviate pain symptoms and toe deviation angle in dancers. The aim of the current crossover study was to investigate the acute effect of using different types of toe caps among well-trained professional dancers on pain perception and toe deviation angle. Ten young female professional dancers volunteered to participate in the study. Each participant was tested during two separate sessions with an interval of 72 h in between. Participants were tested in the two sessions with a standard commercial or a customized prototype toe cap, always with pointe shoes, and in randomized order. An anteroposterior X-ray examination was performed separately for each participant and a visual analogue scale for pain perception was administered following each situation (with a standard commercial or a customized prototype toe cap). Significant amelioration was obtained when a customized toe cap prototype was used both for toe deviation angle and for visual analogue scale. Use of a customized toe cap prototype compared to a standard one may acutely reduce both toe deviation angle and pain in elite female professional dancers.

Doctoral Thesis in Science and Engineering of Polymers and Composites, In the recent years, the Portuguese Footwear industry seeks to affirm itself in a global competitive market, with high technical and innovative solutions able to offer high quality products. The Safety footwear market deserves special attention since the manufactured products are used to protect worker’s feet from potential hazards. The toe cap is one of the key components in safety shoes and one of the main contributors to the overall weight since most safety shoes are built with steel toe caps due to their high mechanical performance. Efforts have been made to replace these toe caps by non-metallic solutions, because they are lighter, provide better thermal and electrical insolation, and are insensitive to magnetic fields. However, most of these toe caps require higher volume concept to achieve a comparable performance to their metallic counterparts, causing aesthetic and design problems. This thesis aimed to foster new solutions based on the enhancement of polycarbonate (PC) mechanical properties and to establish a numerical methodology based on the OpenFOAM®. To this end, PC blends and PC (nano)composites were prepared by melt blending, with ABS, ABS-g-MA, SEBS-g-MA, COPE, nanoclay and natural fibers, and characterized in terms of morphology, topology, structure, tensile and impact behavior of each system. The results demonstrate that ductile to brittle transition mode is highly dependent on the polymeric system and that PC suffers extensive thermo-oxidative degradation during processing, which can be delayed by blending with the elastomeric materials. SEBS-g-MA and COPE can improve toughness, while nanoclay and natural fiber slightly increases the elastic modulus, and ABS and ABS-g-MA only show a marginal increase on both. For the numerical studies, a commercially available toe cap was characterized, and the corresponding tensile behavior was obtained to feed the numerical simulations. A toolbox developed within the OpenFOAM® for solid mechanics and fluid-solid interaction was used to simulate the EN 12568 tests (15 kN of compression force and 200 J of impact) required for safety footwear product approval, showing excellent agreement with the experimental data, with a maximum error of 6.8%., Nos últimos anos, a indústria Portuguesa do Calçado tenta afirmar-se num mercado global muito competitivo apresentando soluções inovadoras e de elevada qualidade. A área do calçado de segurança merece especial atenção devido à sua importância na fabricação de produtos de proteção para os pés dos trabalhadores. A biqueira é um dos componentes mais importantes nesta tipologia de calçado, sendo um dos maiores contribuidores para o peso, uma vez as biqueiras de aço são as mais utilizadas devido à sua elevada resistência mecânica. Vários esforços têm sido direcionados na sua substituição por materiais não-metálicos, porque são mais leves, são térmica e eletricamente isolantes, e não apresentam resposta magnética. Por outro lado, esta alternativa cria problemas estéticos e de design uma vez que requer uma maior espessura maior para obter a resistência comparável à das biqueiras metálicas. Esta tese teve como objetivo apresentar novas soluções que impulsionem o desenvolvimento de novas biqueiras não-metálicas, através de um estudo sobre a manipulação das propriedades do policarbonato (PC) e do desenvolvendo de uma metodologia numérica baseada em OpenFOAM® que permita ajudar na conceção de novos designs. Desta forma, misturas de PC e (nano)compósitos de PC foram preparados por mistura no fundido, com ABS, ABS-g-MA, SEBS-g-MA, COPE, nanoargila e fibras naturais, e procedeuse à caracterização da sua morfologia, topologia, estrutura e comportamento à tração e ao impacto. Os resultados mostraram que o modo de transição dúctil-frágil é dependente do sistema polimérico, e que o PC sofre extensa degradação termo-oxidativa durante o seu processamento, que pode ser amenizado com materiais elastoméricos. O SEBS-g-MA e o COPE promoveram tenacidade, a nanoargila e as fibras naturais aumentaram o módulo de elasticidade, e o ABS e o ABS-g-MA tiveram um impacto ligeiro em ambas as propriedades. Relativamente aos estudos numéricos, uma biqueira comercial foi caracterizada e a respetiva curva tensão-deformação do material foi usada para alimentar as simulações numéricas. A ferramenta numérica baseada em OpenFOAM® para mecânica de sólidos e interação de sólidos-fluidos foi utilizada para simular os ensaios da norma EN 12568 (15 kN de força de compressão e 200 J de energia de impacto) que são requeridos na validação de biqueiras para calçado de segurança, mostrando uma excelente concordância com os dados experimentais com um máximo de erro de 6.8%., Projeto IMPULSE - Polímeros e Compósitos: Drivers da inovação tecnológica e da competitividade industrial (NORTE-08-5369--FSE-000034), cofinanciado pelo Programa Operacional Regional do NORTE (NORTE 2020) através do Portugal 2020 e do Fundo Social Europeu (FSE), pela atribuição da bolsa de doutoramento que permitiu iniciar este projeto.

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), United States Department of the Interior, was in the initial stages of the Water Management Project designed to bring Central Arizona Project water to the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC). Under terms of a contract signed in 1992 with the GRIC, facilities designed and constructed by Reclamation would deliver 173,000 acre-feet of water annually onto the reservation. Federal law mandates consideration of potential impacts of such projects upon cultural resources and requires that necessary and appropriate steps be taken to mitigate those impacts. In accordance with these laws, Reclamation did a complete inventory of all cultural resources that may fall within the project area. Data resulting from this inventory provided the basis for assessment of the significance of the resources and for the design of plans to mitigate potential impacts to them. Two survey areas in which a water delivery system and associated features (such as dikes) will be constructed were identified by Reclamation. Broad survey areas were defined so the location of eligible sites would be known before specific project design began. In total, 180 sites were identified and recorded during survey. These sites include possible Archaic period materials, a wide range of prehistoric Hohokam site types representing all periods of the Hohokam sequence, possible Protohistoric manifestations, and numerous Historic Pima sites of varying ages. The report consists of two volumes. Volume 1 contains background information; consideration of survey and recording methods; analyses, evaluation, and interpretation of collected data; and recommendations for future treatment of discovered sites. Volume 2 contains site descriptions.