Students engineer soft landing for players on the pitch

University of Sheffield mechanical engineers are putting their skills to good use by helping businessman Nick Thompson create the ultimate footwear – gel-lined socks designed to ward off blisters.

Students teamed up with Nick as part of the Sheffield Innovation Programme and the University’s Made Together programme – a series of pledges designed to make South Yorkshire healthier, more vibrant, more sustainable and more innovative.

Nick’s company, Zurego, already has Blis-sox trademarks covering the US and Australia and has been selling thousands of pairs through Amazon. The socks are currently produced in Taiwan but Nick ultimately hopes to source a more locally made product and has other big ambitions for the future.

He also hopes to get Blis-Sox classified as a medical device, secure a European trademark and explore new markets for the product. Nick, who turned to the University to help develop the product and test its strengths against other items on the market, said: “My background is very much in sales and marketing. I have been lucky in being able to identify potential new markets for things.

“We deliberately work with quite niche products but I am entirely reliant on those with technical knowledge to make sure they are putting together the product we want. The people you are dealing with at the University are all excellent in terms of what they do but are also great people to deal with.”

The University’s work on Blis-Sox has so far involved adding scientific rigour to descriptions of the socks’ strength and testing the durability of the sock under certain conditions, but the project is delivering real benefits for students too.

Professor Matt Carré, who has spent years working on the engineering aspects of sportswear and sporting equipment including with sports governing bodies including England’s cricket board, international Tennis Federation and World Rugby, says working with Nick has given two University PhD students important opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills to genuine, practical challenges.

He said: “Students have been looking at the Blis-sox technology and seeing whether there were ways to improve the design of the project. It’s what mechanical engineers do – we pull things to pieces to understand how they work and then look to improve them.

“The team is just finishing tests on the frictional interactions during use of Blis-sox and have been looking at the impact performance too. This work built on previous PhD studies that assessed the friction between sock materials and skin, as well as how impact performance of materials used in sportswear can be analysed and understood. Protocols from these previous projects were used that included tribological (friction) interactions, impact testing and the use of synthetic test-beds that removed the need for using humans or animal tissues in the experiments. We are right towards the end of the project and will then report back to Nick so he can decide how best to use the information.”

Professor Carré added: “Engineering is one of those subjects that you can’t do without collaboration. As an engineering faculty, we have always been a bridge between the University and the business community around us because that is the nature of our research.

“For companies like Zurego it makes a big difference. It is a successful company but it does not have the resources or a research and development budget of a large multi-national sportswear company. The Sheffield Innovation Programme funding and university funding provided means projects like this can happen.”

Professor Carré added: "The things we do as individual engineering researchers are usually small but important pieces within much larger jigsaws, in order to make steps forward. In this way they lead to improved products, and hopefully they improve people's lives for the benefit of wider society."

The socks are now being used on the rugby pitch as Sheffield Eagles player Blake Broadbent wears the socks during training and is also sponsored by Blis Sox.

Mark Hannigan Operations Director for Sheffield Eagles said: “We are extremely appreciative of the support provided by Nick and Blis Sox since his dedication to helping and investing in the local economy reflects and highlights our own One Club ethos. Nick’s kind sponsorship of Blake and also donation of the socks, which he loves training in, is a wonderful illustration of this. Who knew that the University of Sheffield would help give the Sheffield Eagles an added boost on the pitch!”