Author(s)

T. Koizumi, N. Tsujiuchi, H. Horii, M. Miki & J. Hidaka

Abstract

In this research, a computational simulation model of a bunker shot for assessing sand wedge shapes is constructed using the particle element method, PEM. The PEM is one particle simulation method which simulates particle phenomenon by tracing the motion of all particles and calculating the interaction among them. The simulation model is composed of a club head, a golf ball and a large number of particles of sand. Firstly, the reproducibility of the simulation model was verified by comparison with actual bunker shots which were observed using a high speed video camera, then the simulation results gave good agreement with the observa-tional results. Secondly, the simulation model was applied for assessing the prop-erty of a new special sand wedge which had a hollow processed on the sole, then the feature of the wedge and its cause were revealed. This simulation model pro-vides numerical understanding of the property of sand wedges and reasons why the effective property occurs. 1 Introduction As rapidly enlargement of the performance of computer and the computer aided engineering, CAE, computational simulation has been used for design and devel-opment of golf equipments, such as clubs and balls. Ordinary clubs, such as woods and irons, have been assessed by computational simulation models constructed by using the finite element method, FEM, handled as collision of a club head and a ball [1]. However, the sand wedges have been done by designers’ and players’ empirical intuition and trial-and-error, because of the difficulty of simulation mod-eling of the bunker shot. The difficult point of the bunker shot modeling is that the model has to take account of the influence of the bunker sand, because a club head and a ball do not

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