Ergonomic Design of High Impact Performance Sports Bras with Auxetic Structure by using Finite Element Method

This study offers exciting new ways of addressing the complex problems of engineering high performance sports bras. A revolutionary non-contact method is proposed to characterise the boundaries and morphology of the breasts, and dynamically measure the body surface, stretchability of the skin and regional deformation of soft tissues which cannot be done through traditional 3D body scanning and optical motion capturing systems. Here, 3D meshing of the breasts based on images taken at 120 frames per second provides clarity on the soft tissue movement of the entire breast. Analysis will also be carried out to optimise the auxetic structures for the required mechanical properties and synclastic behaviour to advance sports bra designs to increase impact resistance. To simulate the interactions and distribution of stress between the breasts and bra, the bra design features, multiple layers of different materials, bra geometry and location of the bra boundaries will be investigated. Since previous FE analyses that consider the breasts to be incompressible, structurally homogeneous and uniformly dense have resulted in major discrepancies in predicting breast motion, new FE modelling techniques that use a range of Mooney-Rivlin material coefficients and viscoelastic properties of different glandular densities are established to predict the non-uniform and hyperelastic properties of breast tissue components unique to each woman. The dynamic motion and interface pressure between the bra and breasts are predicted and validated against experimental data. As such, new insights and scientific guidelines for high performance sports bra designing and engineering are proposed, and material sciences knowledge on activewear advanced by considering the properties of soft tissues, and conducting image analysis and biomechanical evaluation of the body in motion.