Wind-tunnel Experiments and Trajectory Analyses for Five Nonspinning Soccer Balls. (2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Goff, John Eric; Hobson, Chad Michael; Asai, Takeshi; Hong, Sungchan
• Is Part Of: Procedia engineering. Volume 147(2016)
• Page Start: 32
• Page End: 37
• Publication Date: 2016
• Subjects: aerodynamics -- soccer -- Association football -- trajectory analysis -- wind tunnel; Engineering -- Congresses; Engineering -- Periodicals; Engineering; Conference proceedings; Periodicals; 620.005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.06.185
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1877-7058

Abstract

Abstract: We report drag, side, and lift coefficients for two orientations of five non-spinning soccer balls (Brazuca, Cafusa, Jabulani, Teamgeist 2, and Vantaggio), measured using a wind tunnel. The air's speed range was 7 m/s to 35 m/s, covering most of the speeds of kicked soccer balls in real games. Trajectory analyses make use of our aerodynamic wind-tunnel data and show that the five balls we tested behave differently while in flight. We also show that in some cases, changing ball orientation leads to a significant change in flight trajectory. Turning off side and lift forces alter ranges and lateral deflections as fractions of ranges in excess of 10% for some balls. Because we have only two orientations for non-spinning balls, the work we present here is just the preliminary investigation of a much larger project in which we hope to have aerodynamic data for many more ball orientations.