Alan Ruddock and Prof. Steve Haake are down at the BBC today at the World’s Services 80th Birthday where there is a special day of programmes coming from a marquee in their courtyard called “Inside Out Bush House”. They will be on live at 7-8 pm, 29th of February 2012 with Alan doing a live VO2max test […]
Extreme temperature could influence ball properties at the 2022 World Cup
The host nation for the 2022 World Cup will be Qatar, a desert country where temperatures in June and July can reach 50 °C. I find it hard to even imagine that level of heat, let alone play football in it! The extreme temperatures are of obvious concern. So, alternative measures are being considered to […]
Materials World Magazine Article: Finite Element Testing in Sport
Materials World Magazine recently invited me to write a feature article for a special edition on sports engineering. I was asked to showcase our work (in collaboration with Prince Sports) on a finite element model of a tennis racket.The project aims to develop a model for use in the design of the next generation of tennis rackets, giving ultimate control over […]
Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology, Special Edition on Predictive Modelling in Sport
Dr Simon Choppin and Dr Tom Allen are acting as guest editors for a special edition of Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology. The issue looks at the use of predictive modelling in sport and how it can be used to predict new behaviour, essentially how technology influences sports performance! If you’re an academic and […]
Physics of the groundstroke in tennis
Understanding the physics of the groundstroke in tennis is important for the International Tennis Federation, tennis brands and players. As a research centre we recently published a paper in the journal of Sports Sciences on this subject. Following publication the paper was featured in a short article in Men’s Health magazine. Cover of Men’s Health […]
The heat is on for cyclists in the London velodrome
The velodrome which will host the track cycling events at the 2012 Olympics in London is now open. The facility is the first to open in the Olympic village and has been given the title of the ‘best in the World’. When a country hosts a major sports event, such as the Olympics, they want to […]
No mountains, turn to freestyle!
Introduction Alpine skiing events are dominated by countries who have the luxury of snow capped mountains, for obvious reasons. Figure 1 shows that 85% of Alpine skiing medals at the Olympics have been won by only 7 countries. The mountainous countries appear to have a monopoly on the medals and the obvious question is; can countries without established ski […]
Is it really possible to engineer the perfect football?
On 4th December 2009 the new ball for the World Cup in South Africa was unveiled. The product of years of research and development, the ‘Jabulani‘ was the most highly engineered football the world had ever seen. Prior to the launch adidas had even gone to the extent of testing the ball in the Bundesliga, […]
Revenge of the spaghetti strings?
Many tennis commentators decry the demise of the wooden racket, with a smaller head and less forgiving nature, it demanded a more considered and poised form of play. While it is unlikely that a current professional, raised on cutting-edge carbon fibre rackets would revert to lumber, there is an outlawed stringing method which could have […]
Leipzig: meat, no vegetables and Sports Engineering
On the 18-20th November, Leipzig (Figure 1) in East Germany played host to the ANSYS Conference & 27th CADFEM Users´ Meeting. John Hart and Tom Allen from the Sports Engineering Research Group were in attendance, leaving behind cold wet Sheffield in exchange for cold wet Leipzig. ANSYS produce Finite Element (FE) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. FE […]
Engineering Sport 