Aerodynamic stability of a badminton shuttlecock

Abstract

Badminton is one of the most popular sports in the world and is famous as the sport having the fastest initial velocity of a batted ball among all ball games. Initial velocity immediately after smashing may reach up to 408 km/h (113 m/s) at maximum. A badminton shuttlecock generates significant aerodynamic drag and it was confirmed that the high deceleration characteristics was related to the slots located at the leg portion of a shuttlecock in the previous study. Turnover refers to the flipping experienced by a shuttlecock when undergoing heading change from nose pointing against the flight path at the moment of impact and a shuttlecock indicates the aerodynamically stable feature for the flip movement just after impact. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of gaps on the aerodynamic stability (turnover stability) of a badminton shuttlecock during the flip phenomenon. In the present study, the flow field around the shuttlecock during impulsive change of an angle of attack (flip movement) was measured by using the smoke flow visualization and the behavior of the shuttlecock during the flip movement was evaluated in comparison with that of the conic model (with no gaps). The turnover stability of a badminton shuttlecock is affected by gaps of the shuttlecock skirt.