Design and evaluation of shock-absorbing rubber tile for playground safety

Rubber tiles are commonly used in playgrounds as protective surfacing to reduce the incidence of head injuries in children caused by falling from equipment. This paper presents a newly designed rubber tile consisting of a surface layer of solid and a base layer of honeycomb shape plate-cell. This tile was applied to investigate head injury protective performance. A validated technique combined with experimental and numerical methods was utilized to perform head impact on the rubber tile. The peak acceleration and head injury criterion (HIC) were employed to assess the shock-absorbing capability of the tile. The better protective ability of the honeycomb-core was attributed to its lower transverse shearing stiffness. As a result, the likelihood of establishing safe protection in playground and reducing severe child head injuries could be magnified.