Finite Element Analysis of

a cricket bat
Solid Mechanics (ES240)
Final Project

Widusha Illeperuma
12-04-2009
 Outline

• Introduction


• Project description


• Modeling and results



•
 Introduction to cricket
• The sport cricket is around 500 years old
• This is a bat and ball team sport
• Considered as the world second most popular sport
• Match is played between two teams of eleven
players
•
 Cricket ball

• Made from cork nucleus and a leather cover

• Weighs between 155.9 to 163 g
• Circumference should be no more than 22.9cm
Cricket bat

Handle
Made from cane
(good shock absorbing properties)

Blade
Made from willow
(strong, lightweight and good
shock resistance)
Properties of cricket bat

John et al
 Bat ball impact

Bat ball impact (begins when ball touches the bat and finishes
when they separate)
 What happens with impact?
• High speed impact occurs between ball and the bat,
player and protective equipment
• There will be internal stresses developed in both
bat and ball
•
Development of
• cricket equipment

Understanding impact
 dynamics Improve player
safety and

performance
 Project description

• Determine deformation, stress strain distribution

in cricket bat


• Consider both 2D and 3D analysis



• Consider both static and dynamic analysis


 Why FEA?

• Greatly reduces the cost

• Improve the design capabilities of engineers
• Can get the results quickly
2D Analysis of ball in static condition


Assumptions
• Ball behaves as a linear elastic material
• Ball material is rubber
• Bat-ball impact occurs at +/-150 from x axis
• Boundary conditions are applied directly
opposite to loading
Results of 2D analysis of ball

Initial condition of the ball Deformed ball

Stress on the ball
Strain on the ball
2D Analysis of bat in static condition

Initial condition of the bat Deformed bat

Deformation of the bat
 Max RF

Bending angle

Reaction force on the bat

Finding suitable position on the bat which
gives minimum bending and maximum
reaction force Plot of reaction forces and bending angle with position of the bat
Reaction force
Bending angle

260 7.98
240
7.97
220
200 7.96
180

Bending angle/(deg)
Reaction force/(N)

7.95
160
140 7.94
120
7.93
100
80 7.92
60
7.91
40
20 7.90
0
7.89
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

Around 0.16m from the Position along the bat(m)

bottom of bat
 Suitable position to hit

0.16m

Suitable
position

Experimental results

‘’Cricket bats are designed to hit the ball 12-20 cm

up from the base of the bat’’
 3D analysis of bat and ball in dynamic
loading

Fixed bc

Velocity
Deformation with the impact
Stress propagation with the impact
 Conclusions

• Finite element analysis is a useful method to analyze

the impact in cricket bats


• This can make a change in the bat manufacturing

industry
•
 Future work
• Analyze the impact when ball comes with an angle and
bat hits with an angle


• Vibration analysis of the impact



• Determine exit velocity that produces maximum

speed


• Viscoelastic behavior of cricket ball


 Reference
• John et al, ‘Multi-directional vibration analysis of cricket bats’


• Iwatsubo et al, ‘Numerical analysis of golf club head and ball at

various impact points’


• Hariharan et al, ‘Inertial and vibrational characteristics of a

cricket bat’


• Smith et al, ‘An examination of cricket bat performance’



• Subic et al, ‘Materials in cricket’