Abstract
The service life of a baseball bat is a function of its durability. All wood bats crack, and ash bats exhibit flaking of the barrel due to repeated impacts. In aluminum and composite bats, repeated impacts can cause a change in the material properties, which in turn can lead to dents and microcracks that ultimately coalesce to form macrocracks. A test machine for simulating essentially any field condition for bat/ball impacts has been developed to study bat durability. The system uses an air cannon capable of firing a baseball at speeds up to 180 mph at a stationary bat which is supported in a grip that replicates a player’s hands. This paper will describe the system, present some supporting analysis of the gripping method, and present results of tests from wood and aluminum bats.
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References
Shaw, R. H. and Sherwood, J. A. (2006) Exploring the Crack of the Bat in the Lab: Performance and Durability”, IMAC XXIV Conference Proceedings.
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© 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Drane, P.J., Sherwood, J.A., Shaw, R.H. (2006). An Experimental Investigation of Baseball Bat Durability. In: Moritz, E.F., Haake, S. (eds) The Engineering of Sport 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-46050-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-46050-5_2
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Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-31773-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-46050-5
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