Abstract
The objective of this study was to grasp the relationship between clubshaft positions and the rebound of a ball, and to investigate the factor of the relationship using a finite element (FE) analysis on a ball colliding with a simplified club. The clubs were constructed by holding simplified clubheads in a locking ring fitted onto a steel shaft. The clubheads were designed with reference to the mass, volume and position of centre of gravity (CoG) of commercially available clubheads. FE models with linear elasticity of the clubs were constructed. The FE model of the ball consisted of 8-node solid elements, and the material model was expressed as a hyperelastic/viscoelastic model. Impact experiments were also conducted for comparison to confirm the accuracy of the FE models. The results of impact simulations closely matched the experimental results. The ball rebound was analysed using the constructed models by varying clubshaft positions to the CoG of clubhead. The rebound behaviour of the ball tended to be strongly depended not on the clubshaft positions, but on the characteristics of the clubhead in the case of a collision with the sweet spot of a clubhead. In the sole and crown impact cases, the ball rebound were varied with the shaft positions and the variation seemed to be influenced by the impact force of direction parallel to the axis of shaft.
