Contact:
Dr. Eric L. Wang
University of Nevada, Reno
Department of Mechanical Engineering
MS 312
Reno NV 89557
(775) 784-6094

Research Theme

Research conducted in this laboratory concentrates on two main areas:

• Sports biomechanics and equipment design:
  • Snowboarding
  • Cycling
  • Rock Climbing
  • Snowshoeing
• Hip fractures:
  • Bio-dynamic simulation of falling
  • Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of proximal hip fractures
  • bone fracture mechanics

Research Projects

Dynamics of falling

• Computer simulations of sideways falls that result in hip fractures
• Finite Element Analysis of proximal hip fractures

Cycling

• Quantification of structural loading during off-road cycling
• Energy efficiency of off-road bicycle suspension systems
• Computer simulation of off-road cycling
• Traction of off-road bicycle tires
• Rolling resistance of bicycle tires
• Puncture resistance of bicycle tires
• Cooling efficiency of bicycle helmets

Rock Climbing

• Measurement of rope loads during simulated falls

Snowboarding

Quantification of boot/binding loads.

Computer simulations of snowboarding.

Optimization of equipment for injury prevention.

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Publications

A list of  biomechanics publications is available including some abstracts and links to full text articles

Equipment

• CompuTrainer computer controlled cycling ergometer
• SRM mountain bike ergometer (photo)
• Mountain bike pedal dynamometer (photo1, photo2)
• Various mountain bikes (GT, Specialized, Cannondale, Scott, Trek, ect.)
• Road bikes (Trek)
• Custom device for measuring rolling resitance of tires (road or mountain)
• Custom device for measuring the traction of mountain bike tires (photo)
• 2 six-load component snowboard dynamometers
• 32 channel portable data acquisition system
• 5 kip Instron servo-hydraulic dynamic test system/shock dynamometer (photo)
• 150 kip Uniaxial test system (photo)
• 20 kip Biaxial system
• 50 kip Tri-axial servo-hydaulic test system (photo)
• Ling Dynamics Systems 2 kip electro-magnetic shake table (photo)
• Various PC and Macintosh computers (300 MHz mimimum)
• Finite Element software owned by the Biomechanics Lab: Algor, COSMOS, ABAQUS, NASTRAN
• General access FEA software: ANSYS, Pro/MECHANICA-structure
• CAD packages: Pro/ENGINEER, SolidWorks, AUTOCAD

Research Sponsors

Sports research has been sponsored by a number of industry leaders including Shimano, Trek, GT, Specialized, Rock Shox, Bicycling Magazine, Black Diamond, and K2.