IMPACT BEHAVIOUR OF THE BASEBALL WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR PLAYER SAFETY

Rochelle Llewelyn Nicholls^1,2, Karol Miller², and Bruce Elliott¹.

¹Department of Human Movement & Exercise Science, ²Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering. University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia.

Fatalities amongst baseball pitchers occur primarily as a result of impact by the batted ball (Adler & Monticone, 1996). It was hypothesized the material properties of the baseball would affect ball exit velocity after bat-ball impact, and thereby the available time for the pitcher to take evasive action. Material behaviour of the baseball under conditions representative of those during bat-ball impact have not been previously investigated. The results of quasi-static compression testing were used to develop a mathematical model of the nonlinear viscoelastic behaviour of the baseball as the basis for dynamic analysis of the bat-ball impact.