Date of Award

6-2020

Degree Name

MS in Mechanical Engineering

Department/Program

Mechanical Engineering

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Stephen Klisch

Advisor Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to (1) develop a non-invasive method (referred to as Smart Photo-Tape) to calculate participant-specific upper arm, forearm, and hand segment inertial properties (SIPs) (e.g. mass, center of mass, and radii of gyration) and (2) use those Smart Photo-Tape properties in inverse dynamics (ID) analyses to calculate injury-related pitching arm kinetics. Five 20- to 23- year-old baseball pitchers were photographed holding a baseball and analyzed using the Smart Photo-Tape method to obtain 3-D inertial properties for their upper arm, forearm, and hand. The upper arm and forearm segments were modelled as stacked elliptic cylinders and the hand was modelled as an ellipsoid. One participant received a dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan and conducted a motion analysis study, pitching 10 fastballs. Scaled SIPs from cadaver studies and Smart Photo-Tape SIPs were compared using one sample t-tests. Pitching arm kinetic predictions were calculated and compared using scaled inverse dynamics (ID), Smart Hand ID (a combination of scaled SIPs for the upper arm and forearm and Smart Photo-Tape SIPs for the hand), and Smart Photo-Tape ID. The major result was that the Smart Photo-Tape SIPs were significantly different when compared to their respective scaled inertial properties, with the hand segment producing the largest difference between the scaled SIPs and Smart Photo-Tape SIPs. The implication of this study is that researches or coaches can use the Smart Photo-Tape method to calculate participant specific SIPs for pitching arm kinetic analysis.

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