Abstract:
A roller with an ellipse transverse section, and footballshoe studs fixed on the surface at 5 cm ×5 cm space, was designed to simulate soccer wear. The longer axis and shorter axis of the ellipse were 40 cm and 20 cm respectively. The weight of the roller can be adjusted by filling water in it. Because of inertia and curvature, it presents more effective consolidating and shearing forces than a cylinder roller. The equipment was used to wear 10, 5 and 0 passes/week on a tall fescue and zoysiagrass mixture, with cutting regime as 6.5 cm, 5 cm and 3.5 cm in the growing season. As a result of hard wear, the turf firmness, as measured by penetrometer and soil void ratio analysis, was very close to the data obtained from a frequently used zoysiagrass soccer pitch. At the 3.5 cm cutting level, the coefficient of friction and torque were 1.38 and 1.22 respectively. The values were lower than that of 1.73 and 1.31 in the zoysiagrass soccer pitch, but considered more suitable for soccer game.