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by Anonymous on June 29th, 2006

Anonymous

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Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?

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  • by Henry Hascup on June 29th, 2006

    Henry Hascup

    The fuzz, more properly called felt, is usually made of wool treated with various additives to make it last longer and resist staining.

    http://tennis.about.com/od/tennisballfaq/f/faqballs019.htm

    The tennis ball cover is rough but not like sandpaper. Looking closely at the felt you can see that air flows through those raised fabric filaments - better known as fuzz. So the surface of a tennis ball is a "porous surface." It's more like dealing with the wind blowing through leaves on a tree and just as complicated. The fuzz filaments act like tiny cylinders each having their own drag component. In addition to the skin friction drag from the cover itself, drag is created from the airflow over these fuzz fibers interacting with all the other fibers behind it. Rabi Mehta dubbed this phenomenon "fuzz drag."

    Experiments Mehta conducted also showed that as the ball speed increases the fuzz filaments lay down on the ball and the fuzz drag declines. Here are two pictures from the wind tunnel test. You can see in the picture on the right that the fuzz is closer to the ball's surface. The air passing over the ball on the left is about 45 mph, while on the ball on the right the air is 135 mph.

    http://www.tennisserver.com/set/set_01_10.html

    Researcher Rabi Mehta, working with students, discovered that the "fuzz" on a tennis ball created more drag than was previously believed, since each individual fuzz filament contributes to drag. In addition, he found that fuzz drag is particularly interesting since the fuzz filaments can change orientation during play and gradually wear off.

    http://www.nasaexplores.com/show2_articlea.php?id=02-083

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