Numerical and Experimental Procedures for Development of a Dual Body Dynamics to Study the Ball Impact on a Tennis Racquet

Abstract The dynamic interaction of the ball/tennis racquet is studied in this work. The elasticity and mass of both accessories have critical importance in the optimized performance of tennis players. This is a leading class of sport and leisure activity having gained high prestige due to historical links to nobles/monarchy society. For the best achievements of the accessories developed for the practice of this sport, advanced lightweight materials allowing high stiffness/mass ratios have been studied constantly. In this work, a numerical model based on dynamic equilibrium concepts of soft elastic bodies in collision was proposed to model the behavior of the ball/racquet pair during the shot. High speed video recording techniques were also implemented to validate the results obtained from the numerical model.