The influence of strain measurement on the impact performance of sports mouthguards

The aim of this paper is to study the behaviour of three tooth configurations protected by mouthguards under simple dropweight impacts. Frontal and uppercut impact tests were undertaken with one front tooth strain gauged on each set. The results showed that the performance of the mouthguard can be assessed by the use of strain gauges on the teeth whilst the photoelastic analysis are effective for monitoring the reduction in process stresses for the material. Simple theoretical solutions were suggested in order to differentiate between frontal and uppercut impacts and the influence of adjacent teeth were examined for their role on the local strain distribution for uppercut tests. A more realistic approach appears to be that of monitoring of the load path from the impact indentor.