FEA TURE — EST O SPECIAL
Including shockpads/e-layers in artificial grass for soccer/football is the latest development installers have introduced to improve the quality of the field’s performance.
ESTO &
E-LAYERS IN FOCUS
ESTO
ESTO is the European Synthetic Turf Organisation and was created to educate and inform end-users of the benefits of synthetic turf, to raise quality levels and to be the collective forum for the industry and end-users to discuss, debate and communicate regarding synthetic turf. ESTO does not promote or endorse shockpads as part of a system for synthetic turf sports systems. ESTO sees benefits of all component suppliers working together to raise component standards with the ultimate goal of increasing better synthetic turf systems. This may or may not include shockpads. ESTO has other working groups such as Installers, Infill, Maintenance, and Landscaping, and is the forum for the industry (but also end-users) to discuss and debate the merits of all aspects of synthetic turf. While this article references ESTO, the views are of individuals and their companies.
the end of the day, the system perform- ance is what it is all about,” he said.
Standard or No Standard
Like Tytgat, Cox predicts that it will be mainly the industry involved in prescribing and defining artificial grass solutions that will benefit from the research. “In the long term, it will be the architect and consultant that could benefit from information released by ESTO,” he advised.
Cox anticipates that the guideline doc-
ument that this sub-committee of ESTO compiles can subsequently be submitted to the European Standards Committee for consideration as a complementary stand- ard to EN 15330; the European standard which defines the performance of synthet- ic turf systems for a variety of sports. While establishing a European Stand-
ard is a time-consuming and bureaucratic process, Cox believes ESTO could win some valuable time by doing much of the initial research doing this project. He also hopes to be able to have that process reduced by a third, should he manage to draft a docu- ment that could be accepted immediately. “It normally takes up to three years but if we will give them a finished document this whole process could be reduced to two years or less.” As it stands, Cox expects to have a draft
ready by May 2013. “We have got a good group of people together and we have already identified the basic properties to
20 th AN N I V ER S AR Y P AR T II/ S U M M ER 1 2 P AN S T AD I A
be measured. We are currently looking at potential test methods that can be used for the tests. But before we can come up with a document we will probably need another three or four meetings,” he con- firmed, as everyone involved in the project is doing so out of their own pocket, much flexibility is required from the participants.
The Undisputed Facts Both Cox and Tytgat emphasise that the
study has nothing to do with any possible doubt about e-layers or their performance. “Not at all,” said Tytgat. “As I said earlier, we were allowed to do a presentation at FIFA and they were very positive about the con- tribution an elastic layer can make. But we lacked the scientific proof of the perform- ance. That is what this study is now about.” Cox voiced similar sentiments: “No one
disputes the logic. But this has never been scientifically identified. When installing companies add another EUR€30,000 to EUR€35,000 to a field by installing an elas- tic layer, the scientific proof of the added- value of this layer will certainly be required to convince the client to choose such a solution.” Assuming everything continues to go
well, a draft document will be available by this time next year, enabling installing companies to prove their claims that by including an e-layer in construction, the best possible artificial grass solution can be achieved. ✪
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