Development and Testing of Auxetic Shoulder Straps for Sport Backpacks

Auxetic foams and lattices are a promising class of materials characterized by a negative Poisson ratio which due to their outstanding properties (e.g. multi-impact behaviour and flexibility), can be used in designing next-generation sport equipment. We present an application of these materials in the sport field, suggesting a viable alternative to the current systems with enhanced comfort. Auxetic designs have been employed for the production of ergonomic shoulder straps for sports backpacks, to improve their overall comfort by exploiting the expansion of auxetic cells under tensile loads. Further optimization of the proposed application can be achieved in the future by using the collected data in analytical models to predict the behaviour of these systems.