A Study on Golf Ball Spin Mechanism at Impact

골프 공의 충돌 시 스핀 생성 원리 연구

It is important to improve the initial launch conditions of golf ball at impact between golf club and ball to get a long flight distance. The flight distance is greatly influenced by the initial launch conditions such as ball speed, launch angle and back spin rate. It is also important to analyze the mechanism of ball spin to improve the initial conditions of golf ball. Back spin rate is created by the contact time and force. Previous studies showed that the contact force is determined as the resultant force of the reaction forces normal and tangential to the club face at the contact point. The normal force causes the compression and restitution of ball, and the tangential force creates the spin. Especially, the tangential force is known to take either positive or negative values as the ball rolls and slides along the club face during impact. Although the positive and negative tangential forces are known to create and reduce the back spin rate, respectively, the mechanism of ball spin creation has not yet been discussed in detail in the literature. In this paper, the influence of the contact force between golf club and ball is investigated to analyze the mechanism of impact. For this purpose, the contact force and time at impact between golf club head and ball are computed using FEM and compared with previous results. In addition, we investigate the impact phenomenon between golf club head and ball by FEM and clarify the mechanism of ball spin creation accurately, particularly focusing on the effect of negative tangential force on ball spin rate.