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Measurement of the Coefficient of Friction and the Centre of Pressure of a

Curved Surface of a Climbing Handhold

Article  in  Procedia Engineering · December 2013

DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2013.07.045

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Franz Konstantin Fuss Lisa Burr

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Procedia Engineering 60 (2013) 491 – 495

6th Asia-Pacific Congress on Sports Technology (APCST)

Measurement of the coefficient of friction and the centre of

pressure of a curved surface of a climbing handhold
Franz Konstantin Fussa*, Lisa Burra, Yehuda Weizmana, Günther Nieglb
a
School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne VIC 3083, Australia
b
CLIMB ON MARSWIESE, Climbing Gym, Vienna, Austria
Received 20 March 2013; revised 6 May 2013; accepted 1 June 2013

Abstract

A smart climbing hold with variable inclination of the grip surface was developed, instrumented with two triaxial
force transducers. The inclination of the cylindrical grip surface was varied by adding 10 mm panels to the wall,
thereby confining the surface to larger inclinations. The difficulty of gripping the hold with variable surface
inclination was reflected in the vertical and horizontal forces, which decreased as the inclination increased, and in the
increasing angle of the average force vector.
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
© 2013 Published
Selection by Elsevier
and peer-review Ltd. Selection
under responsibility andSchool
of the peer-review under Mechanical
of Aerospace, responsibility
andof RMIT University
Manufacturing Engineering,
RMIT University
Keywords: instrumented climbing hold; curved surface; centre of pressure; coefficient of friction

1. Introduction

Instrumentation of climbing holds is a standard method for evaluating and analysing performance
parameters of climbing [1-8] and the experience of a climber [1, 3, 5]. Very few studies attempted to
quantify the difficulty of gripping a hold [3, 4]. Fuss and Niegl used fractal dimensions of the force
signals for measuring the grip difficulty, by comparing standard artificial holds [3], and by inclining an
experimental hold [4]. In the latter experiment, the hold was mounted on a bouldering wall and the grip
surface of the hold was tilted by inclining the wall gradually from 10 to 50 degrees. However, inclining
the wall does not only change the grip difficulty of a hold but also affects the statics and dynamics of the
move [4, 9].

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9925 6123; fax: +61 3 9925 6108.
E-mail address: franz.fuss@rmit.edu.au.

1877-7058 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2013.07.045
492 Franz Konstantin Fuss et al. / Procedia Engineering 60 (2013) 491 – 495

The aim of this study was to establish a method for increasing the difficulty of gripping a climbing
hold by changing the inclination of its surface without having to tilt the wall, and for determining the
centre of pressure and the coefficient of friction on a curved handhold surface.

Fig. 1. (a) Experimental hold instrumented with two triaxial force transducers; the cylindrical grip surface of the hold is confined to
larger inclinations by adding wooden panels (1-5) to the wall; (b) climbing route; L / R: holds for left / right hands.

2. Experimental procedure

A handhold with a cylindrical grip surface (quarter cylinder; Figure 1(a)) and housing for two force
transducers was designed in SolidWorks 2008 SP5.0 (Dassault Systèmes, Waltham MA, USA) and CNC
machined from Ureal (Renshape BM 5460, Huntsman Advanced Materials, Everberg, Belgium). The
hold was instrumented with two triaxial force transducers (9317B, Kistler, Winterthur, Switzerland). The
extent of the hold’s grip surface was confined to larger inclinations by 10 mm thick wooden panels
(Figure 1(a)). The more wooden panels attached to the wall, the more inclined is the surface, and thus the
more difficult it is to keep a firm grip. The number of wooden panels therefore represents the increasing
difficulty of moving up the wall. The instrumented hold was integrated in a climbing route shown in
Figure 1(b). The charge of the piezoelectric force transducers was converted to voltage and amplified
with three charge meters (5015A, Kistler, Winterthur, Switzerland) by combining the x-channels of the
two transducers in line with the vertical direction (corresponding to the downward force in y-direction of
the handhold’s coordinate system; Figure 1(a)) in a single channel in addition to two individual channels
of the transducers’ z-channels (corresponding to the forces perpendicular to the wall). The data were
sampled at 2 kHz, converted from analog to digital with a four channel USB DAQ module (USB-2404-
10, Measurement Computing, Norton MA, USA; minimum data sampling frequency 1.8 kHz) and
recorded with TracerDAQ Pro (Measurement Computing, Norton MA, USA).
 Franz Konstantin Fuss et al. / Procedia Engineering 60 (2013) 491 – 495 493

The position of the centre of pressure (COP) on the cylindrical surface of the hold was calculated from
the moment equilibrium and the equation of a circle. Due to the second order nature of the latter, two
COPs resulted in x-direction, each of which had two associated y-coordinates. The right y-coordinates
were determined from satisfying the moment equilibrium. The decision making for finding the right COP
location was based on the following boundary conditions: the x-coordinate of the COP (COPx) must be
real, and the COP must be located in the 2nd quadrant of the coordinate system (negative x- and positive
y-coordinate). The coefficient of friction (COF) was calculated from the ratio of tangential to normal
force components at each instantaneous COP. It has to be noted that the term COF refers merely to the
force ratio and not to static or dynamic friction coefficients. Mean and standard deviation of COPx and
COF were calculated from weighting them to the resultant reaction force at each instantaneous COP.
An experienced female mountaineer (red point UIAA VIII-, onsight UIAA VII) climbed the route 18
times, three times per panel number, the latter ranging from zero to five (Figure 1(a)). Grip-enhancing
agents (e.g. chalk / MgCO3) were not used in these experiments.

Fig. 2. Coefficient of friction (COF) against x-coordinate of the centre of pressure (COPx); (a): map of data distribution (0-5:
number of wooden panels used for confining the surface of the hold); (b): mean values (black dots) and standard deviations of COPx
and COF (the rectangles correspond to the boundaries of mean ± 1 standard deviation).

3. Results

The location of COPx against the COF is shown in Figure 2. The general trend matches the expected
result: the further COPx off the wall, the higher is the COF (due to increasing inclination of the hold’s
curved surface). However, when using all five wooden panels for confining the surface, the COF
decreases instead of increasing. The COPx and COF average values are all significantly different, even
the COF data at two and three panels (0.6628 ± 0.0805 and 0.6681 ± 0.0836, respectively), which is due
to the large number of data per experiment (6300 - 7800).
The average resultant force of the three trials per panel decreased with the increasing inclination of the
surface at the COP (Figure 3). The angle of the average resultant force vector at panels no. 4 and 5 was
larger than 90 degrees, indicating the climber pushed slightly in the direction of the wall rather than
494 Franz Konstantin Fuss et al. / Procedia Engineering 60 (2013) 491 – 495

pulling on the hold as seen in the other four force vectors. The magnitude of the average resultant force
correlated well with its position angle (r2 = 0.993, parabolic fit; Figure 4b). In addition to that, the surface
gradient at the average COP correlated linearly with the position angle of the average resultant force (r2 =
0.989) and parabolically with the magnitude of the average resultant force (r2 = 0.994).

Fig. 3. Average resultant forces; a: force vector diagram on hold surface, average resultant force vectors at different numbers of
wooden panels confining the grip surface of the hold (0-5); b: magnitude of average resultant against angle of average resultant.

4. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to establish a method of measuring the difficulty of gripping a hold with
variable surface inclinations without having to tilt the wall. The results presented in this study are based
on a single climber only in order to evaluate and define the parameters representing the difficulty of the
grip, before applying them to a larger cohort of test persons. The most apparent difficulty parameters
turned out to be the average resultant force, and the position angle of the average resultant force. The
climber reduced both the vertical (downward) as well as the horizontal (outward, off the wall) load on the
hold with increasing inclination of the grip surface. Surprisingly, the COF did not serve for quantifying
the grip difficulty, at least not in the climber examined, as the COF decreased from the second highest to
maximal inclination of the grip surface, in contrast to the result of previous studies [4]. Further
experiments are required to confirm this result.

5. Conclusions

The difficulty of gripping a climbing hold with variable surface inclination was reflected in the vertical
and horizontal forces, which decreased as the inclination increased, and in the increasing angle of the
average force vector.
 Franz Konstantin Fuss et al. / Procedia Engineering 60 (2013) 491 – 495 495

References

[1] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Instrumented Climbing Holds and Dynamics of Sport Climbing. In: The Engineering of Sport 6, Vol. 1 –
Developments for Sports, pp. 57-62, Eds: Moritz EF, Haake S; Springer, Munich, 2006.
[2] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Dynamics of Speed Climbing. In: The Engineering of Sport 6, Vol. 1 – Developments for Sports, pp. 51-
56, Eds: Moritz EF, Haake S; Springer, Munich, 2006.
[3] Fuss FK, Niegl G. The Fully Instrumented Climbing Wall: Performance Analysis, Route Grading and Vector Diagrams – A
Preliminary Study. In: The Impact of Technology on Sport II, pp. 677-682, Eds: Fuss FK, Subic A, Ujihashi S, Taylor and Francis
Group, London, 2008.
[4] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Quantification of the grip difficulty of a climbing hold. In: The Engineering of Sport 7, pp 19-26, Eds:
Estivalet M, Brisson B, Springer, Paris, 2008.
[5] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Instrumented Climbing Holds and Performance Analysis in Sport Climbing. Sports Technology 2008,
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[6] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Biomechanics of the Two-Handed Dyno Technique for Sport Climbing. Sports Engineering 2010, 13:19–
30.
[7] Fuss FK, Niegl G. Finger load distribution in different types of climbing grips. Sports Technology 2012, 5(3–4): 151–155.
[8] Russell SD, Christopher A. Zirker CA, Blemker SS. Computer models offer new insights into the mechanics of rock
climbing. Sports Technology 2012; 5(3–4): 120–131.
[9] Fuss FK, Niegl G. The importance of friction between hand and hold in rock climbing. Sports Technology 2012, 5(3–4): 90–
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