ing the color of traditional crumb rubber particles as a cooling technique. Certain turf fibers are even claimed to contain technol- ogy that significantly reduces surface tem- perature. Unfortunately, independent research supporting the claims of these products has been lacking and unavailable to consumers. At the Center for Sports Surface Re-
search, we conducted a series of experi- ments to evaluate the effects of varying these components on surface temperature. Surface temperatures of infill materials and fibers were tested independently and as a system (infill installed into carpet). A vari- ety of infill materials including various col- ors of crumb rubber, Ecofill (polyolefin granules), and TPE were evaluated (Fig 1). For the fibers, we recorded the temperature of white, gold, silver, black, and green (FieldTurf Duraspine, FieldTurf Revolu- tion, and AstroTurf AstroFlect) fibers. The combined turf system test included a total of 11 fiber-infill combinations. We con-
ducted our tests indoors using a 250-watt infrared heat lamp (Fig 2) that has been correlated to sunny outdoor conditions at Penn State. Our study indicates that none of the fiber-infill combinations tested measured
Fiber Color Gold
White Silver Black Green
Green (FieldTurf Revolution) Green Green Green Green
Green (AstroFlect) Infill
Black Rubber Black Rubber Black Rubber Black Rubber Ecofill
Black Rubber Black Rubber Green Rubber Tan Rubber TPE
Black Rubber
substantially lower in surface temperate than the standard green fibers and black crumb rubber infill systems (Table 1). We did find certain combinations of infill type and fiber can lower the surface temperature slightly. In the fiber test, it’s not surprising
Table 1. Surface temperatures of various fiber-infill combinations after 3 hours under heat lamp.
Surface Temperature (F) 171.1 a† 170.4 ab 169.2 ab 169.2 ab 167.3 abc 165.6 abcd 165.5 abcd 163.8 bcde 161.1 cde 160.5 de 158.9 e
All fibers were FieldTurf Duraspine Pro unless otherwise noted †Temperatures that do not share the same letter are significantly (statistically) different
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SportsTurf 21
