Viscoelastic impact characterisation of solid sports balls used in the Irish sport of Hurling

Abstract

In recent years, variability in behaviour of the sliotar, a small leather-bound ball used in the Irish sport of hurling, has become evident in championship matches. The inconsistency in performance was attributed to the range of constructions and material compositions of currently approved ball types. With a view to adopting a standard core, a new methodology has been commissioned to assess the dynamic impact behaviour of approved sliotar cores. In this paper, the relationship between the dynamic stiffness and the coefficient of restitution is presented with regard to material properties, ball construction and viscoelastic strain and strain-rate dependencies. The modern polymer ball types were shown to exhibit strain-rate sensitivity, while the performance of the traditional multi-compositional ball types exhibited lesser strain-rate dependence. The traditional balls types were shown to be up to 2.5 times stiffer than the modern ball types, with this finding having implications for ball energy dissipation.

Effect of Grain Size and Surface Roughness on the Normal Coefficient of Restitution of Single Grains

“…The collision between particle and block surface is a fundamental problem in solid mechanics, with applications ranging from macroscopic mechanical engineering to microscopic particle technology [1]. A long list of scientific papers used the collision behavior for various applications, for example, sports [2], the temperature dependence of polymer balls [3] and the stability of planetary rings [4]. Additionally, the collision behavior is of interest in the areas of geological and geotechnical engineering research, such as rock falls, sand dunes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and debris flows, seismic hazards and meteoritic impacts [5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Jumping Platonic Solids on a Vibrating Plate

“…Viscoelasticity and a velocity-dependent coefficient of restitution could be an interesting extension of this study. This effect has been studied, e.g., in experiments and simulations of bouncing spheres [61,62] and for cooling of granular gases, [63] yet the majority of studies in literature was performed with the approximation of a constant restitution coefficient. In our experiments, impact velocities were slow enough and the velocity dependence of the restitution coefficient was small enough to justify its neglect.…”

Ausgewählte Anwendungen von Stoßproblemen

“…Anwendungen im Sportbereich [84], Baseball [85], Golf [86], Cricket [87] und Hurling [88]. Dies betrifft sowohl den Kontakt zwischen Ball und Boden als auch den zwischen Ball und Schläger.…”