A Viscoelastic Contact Analysis of the Ground Reaction Force Differentiation in Walking and Running Gaits Realized in the Simplified Horse Leg Model Focusing on the Hoof–Ground Interaction

In the present study, the systematic method for the forward dynamics associated with the ground contact model was introduced to be able to consider the viscoelastic effect when contacting with the ground. In particular, we focused on the hoof-ground interaction in the simplified horse leg model because walking and running gaits are known to be different in trajectories; however, the force analysis still remains as unsolved issues. The computational experiments in Matlab, elastic and inelastic impact with the ground was resolved by using the dissipative contact force model proposed by Lankarani and Nikravesh and the ground reaction force was clearly examined in four different conditions from the combination of walking/running and elastic/inelastic contact. As result, two peaks during the stance phase in the walking condition were realized as well as the human gait and a single peak was newly observed in running with a time gap in elastic and inelastic condition. The proposed method contributes to the establishment of the detail time course analysis of the ground reaction force for animal and human gaits in a consistent manner.