テニスボールの空力特性

抄録

The structure of the current tennis ball is covered with a uniform felt fabric on the outer surface made of hard rubber. The inside of the ball is filled with air about 1.8 atm. The seam is filled with adhesive or resin. The seams are filled with glue or resin. The ball in tennis is always struck with rotation. Rotational speed of the serve ball is about 5,500 rpm maximum. It is up to about 4,700 rpm for the stroke. As the ball continues to hit, the surface felt wears. Also, air leaks out through the structure inside. These factors cause a difference in the aerodynamic characteristics of new and used balls.

In general it is a new ball to use in the game, but the one used in practice is a used ball. Worn out changes the hydrodynamic properties of the ball, and the trajectory of the ball also changes. Therefore, the performance difference between the new tennis ball and the used tennis ball should be confirmed by measuring the fluid force.

In this research, the aerodynamic characteristics of the old and new tennis balls rotating were investigated and the PIV results of the flow around the ball due to the wear of the felt producing these characteristics. For the four types of tennis balls tested, used balls showed higher in drag coefficient than new balls, and new balls tended to be higher than used ball in lift coefficient. It is believed that deformation due to deterioration of ball rubber brings about a change in drag coefficient, which causes a change in lift coefficient due to wear of the surface felt. In the new ball, feltfluff stands, which indicates that the wake flow is large and inclined diagonally backward compared to the used ball, and the air around the ball is found to be caught by the felt fluff.