There are lots of devices out there to measure impact force. What you might need to do measure the impact on the skull during a soccer ball-head impact is consider experiments like softball compression, equipment impact, or footwear compression measurements. We need to find a device that measures compression force and that could be attached to the player’s head (or the ball) to measure the impact during the heading of the ball.

There are plenty of websites with information about industrial impact measuring devices. Piezoelectric devices convert motion into electrical signal. The availability and cost of piezoelectric devices may be an issue, but they would allow you to simulate the collision event more accurately. Worst case, you could try using a small bathroom scale or other spring device.

Here is a rough outline of an experimental setup for testing soccer ball-head impact.

Let’s assume you cannot get a piezoelectric compression device or the electronics to measure and record the signal. You could rig up a melon or something (instead of a head) with a small scale attached to it. If you are just interested in the forces involved you could launch or drop soccer balls at the scale and record the highest weight (force) observed. If you wanted to get high-tech add a video camera to the set-up to film the scale reading. After making several measurements with the bare melon, add a helmet to the set-up if the scale will fit under the helmet. Repeat the measurements.

Here are web links I found that might help you out:

A System for the Measurement of Impact Force in Footwear (a summary of an experiment)

Force, Acceleration, & Torque (describes force measuring devices)

Center for Sports Innovation (softball compression testing).

http://www.nisss.org/balltest.htm (baseball impact testing)

Sincerely,

Tom “Concussion Testing” Cull