Dynamics of the baseball-bat collision

American Journal of Physics

Volumn 68, Issue 11, 2000, Pages 979-990

  Nathan, Alan M ^a  

^a University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034368760     PISSN: 00029505     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.1286119     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Robert K. Adair, The Physics of Baseball (HarperCollins, New York, 1994), 2nd ed., pp. 71-79.
2. A useful compendium of articles, mostly reprinted from the American Journal of Physics, are contained in the book edited by Angelo Armenti, Jr., The Physics of Sports (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1992). Besides the reprinted articles, there is an extensive bibliography with references to many additional articles.
3. H. Brody, "Models of baseball bats," Am. J. Phys. 58, 756-758 (1990).
4. R. Cross, "The sweet spot of a baseball bat," Am. J. Phys. 66, 772-779 (1998).
5. P. Kilpatrick, "Batting the ball," Am. J. Phys. 31, 606-613 (1963).
6. H. Brody, "The sweet spot of a baseball bat," Am. J. Phys. 54, 640-643 (1986).
7. L. L. Van Zandt, "The dynamical theory of the baseball bat," Am. J. Phys. 60, 172-181 (1992).
8. R. Cross, "Impact of a ball with a bat or racket," Am. J. Phys. 67, 692-702 (1999).
9. R. Cross (private communication).
10. K. F. Graff, Wave Motion in Elastic Solids (Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1975), pp. 140-212.
11. The Linear Algebra Package (LAPACK) subroutines are downloadable from the WWW site http://nacphys.phys.orst.edu/lapack.
12. R. Cross, "The bounce of a ball," Am. J. Phys. 67, 222-227 (1999).
13. 0 at these speeds than did the baseballs of yesteryear.
14. W. H. Press et al., Numerical Recipes (Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, 1986), p. 553.
15. W. Goldsmith, Impact (Arnold, London, 1960), pp. 108-129.
16. This expression ignores the vibrational energy associated with the shearing motion as well as the rotational energy of the individual slices. As discussed in Appendix B, these effects are expected to be small. Indeed, we have verified by direct calculation that less than 1% of the energy appears in these modes under conditions typical for the ball-bat collision.
17. f at 40 cm would be boosted by only about 10%.
18. The September 1999 report that establishes procedures for certification of bats can be found on the WWW at the site http://www.ncaa.org/releases/ makepage.cgi/miscellaneous/1999092901ms.htm.