Understanding Ball Deformation in Collisions: A Microscopic vs. Macroscopic View

[niscsi]

Hi

Firstly I'm begginer level at physics, but I'm thinking for days about this problem:
how change tha ball shape when it collide with a wall.
I'm looking for books etc on the net, i found several about deformation but all i found
are very short. The best is write about usually the compute the deformation are two way
microscopic and the simpler is a macroscope/fenomelogy view. This book mentioned whan i
would like to calculate the deformation of shape i have to calculate some motion differential
equations but this is very complicated. So I'm looking for books which include more about this..
(Sorry i read this book in hungarian so maybe my translate is not correct so I'm looking for the
correct english words about this problem)

 

[Feldoh]

Essentially if you make a ball collide with a wall a few things could happen. Depending on the material of the ball it could have things ranging from no damage, to permanent significant deformation, to maybe even fracture. It just depends on the materials that compose the ball.

 

[niscsi]

Thank you for your answer :)

So I'm thinking about tennis ball, so i think no permanent significant deformation.

So maybe, my goal is making a program with slow motion about the collide.

 

[Feldoh]

Ah, well I don't really have anything else in terms of actual data, however there is a professor at the University of Illinois that does some research on the physics of baseball, perhaps that's a good place to start. I think he also wrote a book about it part of which I think is dedicated to the deformation of the ball and the effects of it.

 

[Cantab Morgan]

One thing to keep in mind is that hollow balls that bounce, like tennis balls, owe much of their elasticity to their tendency to return to their undeformed shapes like a spring would. If you smash two sliders on a linear air track together, they won't tend to have an elastic collision. But put springs on them and you will.