Sports Eng (2012) 15:29–40
DOI 10.1007/s12283-012-0085-8
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Wind tunnel measurement and flow visualisation of soccer ball
knuckle effect
Masahide Murakami • Kazuya Seo •
Masakazu Kondoh • Yutaka Iwai
Published online: 3 February 2012
! International Sports Engineering Association 2012
Abstract Wind tunnel experiments were conducted, in
particular focusing on slow unsteady variations of aero-
dynamic forces as a potential cause of the knuckle effect of
a new soccer ball (Teamgeist) under non-spinning condi-
tion. The experiments included simultaneous measure-
ments of the drag, the side force and the surface pressure
on a ball surface, and the tuft visualisation to investigate
the flow field behind a ball. Of particular interest was
the erratic nature of the knuckle effect resulting from
the unsteady movement of vortical wake structure in the
supercritical Reynolds number regime. A simple 2-D
numerical simulation of the ball flight trajectory was per-
formed by taking into account the unsteady side force data
measured in the present experiments.
Keywords Soccer ball knuckle effect ! Aerodynamics in
supercritical Reynolds number regime ! Ball surface
pressure ! Tuft flow visualisation ! Unsteady aerodynamics
1 Introduction
In ball games such as soccer, a ball flies in air, and thus the
flight is interesting from the point of view of aerodynamics.
On the occasion of the FIFA World Cup in 2006, the design
of the ball was changed. The surface of the New Ball
(Teamgeist) was formed from a smaller number of panels
M. Murakami (&) ! M. Kondoh ! Y. Iwai
Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering,
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
e-mail: murakami@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp
K. Seo
Faculty of Education, Art and Science,
Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan
stuck together, becoming smoother than previous models.
As a result, erratic ball trajectories where a ball irregularly
swerved just like a knuckle ball in baseball appeared more
frequently in games [1, 2]. It was indicated in image
analysis results of non- or low-spinning soccer ball flights
in field experiments and actual games that the soccer ball
speed on the occasions of a long shot and a free kick when
the knuckle effect might appear was 24–30 m/s, which
corresponds to the Reynolds number (Re) 3.8 9 105–
4.7 9 105 in the supercritical regime [2].
Research related to this phenomenon found that it arose
from flow past a smooth sphere without spin at very high
Reynolds numbers (104–106) [3, 4]. Modelling the soccer
ball flight was also presented [5]. After the World Cup
2006, aerodynamic studies of knuckle effect of a soccer
ball have been intensively conducted by Asai et al. [2],
Mizota et al. [6], Kuroki et al. [7], Iwai et al. [8], Murakami
et al. [9], Hong et al. [10] and Barber et al. [11, 12], where
the four are field researches [2, 6, 10, 11] and the others are
wind tunnel experiments [6–9] and a numerical simulation
[12]. Reviews of sports ball aerodynamics were presented
by Mehta [13] and Watts et al. [14]. It should be noted that
there seem to be two kinds of knuckle balls for the non- or
low-spinning ball flight. The knuckle ball in baseball
games is the original one that is a quasi-steady aerody-
namic phenomenon appearing in the subcritical Re regime
[13, 15], while the so-called knuckle effect appearing in a
soccer ball flight discussed in Refs. [2, 6–10] is another
kind of aerodynamic phenomenon appearing in the super-
critical Re regime. It has been concluded in the reports [7,
13] that the former is induced by the variations in the side,
lift and drag forces in response to the variation of the rel-
ative position of ball seam lines to air flow during slow
rotation of a ball. Detailed hot wire measurements in the
wake behind a ball [6, 7] revealed that the quasi-steady
30
aerodynamic force variations were caused by variations in
the velocity loss in the wake region and in the separation
point as the result of the laminar–turbulent transition of the
boundary layer. Barber et al. [11, 12] stated in their reports
that the knuckle effect of a soccer ball was a similar quasi-
steady aerodynamic phenomenon and unsteady effects
were of secondary importance. However, other reports [2,
7–10] have related the knuckle effect of a non-spinning
soccer ball with unsteady aerodynamic phenomena around
a ball and resulting ball flight trajectory. In previous wind
tunnel studies [8, 9], the authors identified that the knuckle
effect of a non-spinning soccer ball (Teamgeist) occurred
in the supercritical Re regime above 3.4 9 105. In this Re
regime, a pair vortex structure composed of two attached
vortices was occasionally created, randomly rotated, dis-
appeared and then re-created at a frequency around or
lower than 1 Hz. The rather unpredictable motions of these
pair vortex structure behind a ball induced the variations in
the aerodynamic force on a ball, resulting in the knuckle
effect. The erratic ball flight behaviour of a non- or low-
spinning ball called the knuckle effect, regardless of an
unsteady or quasi-steady origin, is different from the
curling ball caused by Magnus force for a high-spinning
ball. The present report describes the unsteady aerody-
namic forces in the supercritical Re regime that may be a
cause of knuckle effect of a soccer ball flight.
A series of wind tunnel experiments were conducted
focusing on slow unsteady variations of the aerodynamic
forces with a time constant of the order of 1 s as a potential
cause of the knuckle effect of a non-spinning soccer ball. In
the present study, a pressure transducer was used to mea-
sure the surface pressure of a ball, as well as an aerody-
namic force balance to measure the drag and side forces
and a tuft grid to visualise the wake structure. These studies
focussed on the seemingly random nature of the knuckle
effect resulting from vortex shedding in the supercritical
Re regime and on the detailed mechanism causing the
knuckle effect. The ball flight trajectory was numerically
simulated by taking into account the real unsteady side
Fig. 1 Wind tunnel
experimental setup and
coordinate system (left), and the
tuft grid behind a test ball
(right)
M. Murakami et al.
force data measured in this experiment to exemplify the
deflection of a soccer ball flight trajectory under the con-
dition where the knuckle effect was active.
2 Wind tunnel experiments
An overview of the wind tunnel experimental setup is
shown in Fig. 1. The wind tunnel is of a low-speed Eiffel
type with a maximum wind speed of 30 m/s and the
measurement section size of 700 mm 9 700 mm, with a
turbulent level of 0.5%, and located in Yamagata Univer-
sity. In the present experiment, the wind speed was set
from 6 to 30 m/s corresponding to Re of 0.8 9 105–
4.1 9 105, taking the diameter of the test ball as the ref-
erence length. The test ball was supported normally from
back using a support stem connected with a three-compo-
nent (drag, side force and pitching moment) balance
(LMC-3531-50NS, Nissyo Electronics Co., Ltd.) as long as
there was not a description that another support system was
used. For flow visualisation of the wake immediately
behind the ball model, a tuft grid and a high-speed digital
video camera (FASTCAM-1024PCI100K, Photoron CO.,
Ltd.) were used with detailed image analysis. Visualisation
images were recorded with a pixel size of 512 9 512 for a
1,000 mm 9 1,000 mm frame area at 2,000 fps and a
shutter speed of 1/2,000 s.
Three kinds of ball models, the New Ball (2006 FIFA
World Cup official ball, Teamgeist) with a diameter of
220 mm, the Old Ball (old type, 32 panels hand-sewn ball),
220 mm and the smooth sphere, 240 mm, were used as test
balls. The two test balls, the New Ball and the Old Ball,
were cast in glass fibre-reinforced polymers (GFRP) and
thus these are full-scale models. The real ball surface was
recreated including the depth of the seam line. The smooth
sphere was made of aluminium with an NC lathe and then
the surface was buff-finished with an average surface
roughness of less than 1.5 lm. The difference in the
aerodynamic behaviour of the three test balls originates
Wind tunnel measurements of soccer ball knuckle effect
Fig. 2 Two pressure holes on the test ball surface for surface
pressure measurement (side view). Each hole with a diameter of 1 mm
is connected to a differential pressure transducer by a tube with an
inner diameter of 1 mm. The hole A is at the front stagnation point
and the B at 90" in the case of the ball model supported from the right
back. In the right, the test ball and the support stem are shown
from the variation in surface configurations. The Old and
New Balls are characterised by larger surface features,
mostly resulting from seam lines than the smooth sphere. In
addition, the gap depth (0.3–1.5 mm) and the total length
of seam lines (3,400 mm) for the New Ball are smaller than
those (1.0–3.2 mm, 3,900 mm, respectively) for the Old
Ball. It may be asserted that the surface of the Old Ball is
rougher or more irregular than the New Ball in fluid
dynamic sense. In the present experiment, ball surface
pressure measurement was newly conducted [9] in addition
to the aerodynamic force measurement and the tuft visu-
alisation [8]. For the measurement of the surface pressure,
the New Ball model with two pressure holes (A and B)
separated by 90" was used as shown in Fig. 2. By changing
the installation angle of the ball support stem, the angle of a
pressure hole A can be changed from -90" through the
stagnation point (0") to 90" with respect to the air flow, and
for the pressure hole B from about 0–180", respectively. A
differential small-pressure transducer (PDV-10A, Kyowa
Electronic Industries Co., Ltd. Japan) that measures the
pressure difference between the static pressure on a ball
surface and the surrounding atmospheric pressure is located
outside the ball, to which a pressure tube transmits the
pressure.
The tufts are composed of fine machine cotton threads
with a length of 25 mm that are tied at 31 9 33 grid
points of a tuft grid (950 mm square) with an interval of
25 mm. The machine cotton threads were untwisted and
knotted to each grid point loosely enough to provide
satisfactory local flow tracing. The tuft grid was installed
30 mm behind the ball model. The timing of the data
acquisition of the tuft visualisation and the measurements
of the pressure and the aerodynamic forces were fully
synchronised.
The balance measured only the drag D (in the flow
direction X) and the side S (Y-direction) forces for the
present study. The data were sampled at a rate of 1 kHz for
8 or 16 s on an average. Since the eigenfrequencies of the
31
ball support system were 19.2 Hz in the X-direction and
8.9 Hz in the Y-direction, they were eliminated for the
significant data acquisition with the aid of a band elimi-
nation filter.
3 Experimental results and discussion
3.1 Drag measurement data
The drag force is a way to grasp the general fluid dynamic
features around an obstacle in an air flow depending on the
Reynolds number, although it is not the direct cause of the
knuckle effect. Before going into the detailed discussion of
unsteady fluid dynamic features around each ball model,
the drag measurement data are reviewed on the basis of the
previous report [8]. The drastic fluid dynamic feature
around a spherical ball in the present Reynolds number
range, from 0.8 9 105 to 4.1 9 105, is the drag crisis
where the drag suddenly decreases. When the air speed
increases and thus the Reynolds number exceeds Recrt, the
boundary layer separation suddenly changes from the
laminar separation to the turbulent separation. The laminar
separation occurs slightly before 90" measured from the
front stagnation point, while the turbulent separation occurs
more downstream after 90", which results in reduction in
the size of the dead-water region in the wake behind the
ball causing reduction of the drag force, in particular of the
pressure drag component. The critical Reynolds number,
Recrt depends on the shape and surface condition of an
obstacle. In previous wind tunnel experiments [8], the
values of Recrt were found to be: the New Ball, 3.1 9 105;
the Old Ball, 2.3 9 105; the smooth sphere, 4.2 9 105.
From the viewpoint of aerodynamic behaviour in the Re
range around Recrt, the New Ball represents behaviour
between that of the smooth sphere and of the Old Ball. It is
worthy to note that a large-scale unsteady variation was
observed in the drag in the supercritical Re range, which
meant that the drag data were poorly reproducible in the
supercritical regime even after averaging over 8 s.
The large-scale unsteady aerodynamic feature in the
supercritical range can be recognised if the time variation
data of the drag coefficient are considered. The definitions
of the drag coefficient CD, the side force coefficient CS, and
the pressure coefficient Cp, are given in Eq. 1
CD ¼ 2D=qU 2 A CS ¼ 2S=qU 2 A Cp ¼ 2p=qU 2 ð1Þ
where D, S, p, U, q and A are the drag and side forces,
surface pressure, air speed, density and cross-sectional area
of a test model, respectively. The data are presented in
Fig. 3a for the New Ball, Fig. 3b for the Old Ball and
Fig. 3c for the smooth sphere, for several flow speeds
between 6 and 30 m/s. Figure 3 shows that as the air speed
32 M. Murakami et al.

Fig. 4 Simultaneous measurement results of the side force coeffi-

cient, CS, and the drag coefficient, CD, when the side force varied in a
large-scale at the Reynolds number of 4.1 9 105 (in the supercritical
Re regime) for the New Ball. The data are not low-pass filtered

The simultaneous measurement results of the drag

coefficient, CD, and the side force coefficient, CS, at the
Reynolds number of 4.1 9 105 (in the supercritical Re
regime) for the New Ball are shown in Fig. 4, where large-
scale side force variation are noted. It is also seen in this
result that the temporal variations of CD and CS are well
correlated. This is quite natural because both aerodynamic
forces vary as a result of the change in the flow structure
around the ball model. In what follows, the experimental
data of the New Ball will be primarily treated for the dis-
cussion of the knuckle effect on a soccer ball.

3.2 Time variations of CS and Cp

It is not the drag but the side force and the lift that directly
cause the knuckle effect. The side force can also be sensed
from the variation of the surface pressure on a ball. Shown
in Fig. 5 is the time variations of the side force coefficient
CS and the pressure coefficient Cp measured at 90" from the
stagnation point at which point the surface pressure is the
most sensitive to the side force variation. It is, in fact, seen
Fig. 3 Time variations of the drag coefficient CD for the New Ball in
a, for the Old Ball in b and for the smooth sphere in c, at several air
in this result that there is a very high (negative) correlation
flow velocities between 6 and 30 m/s between them. The negative correlation is just a conse-
quence of the definition of the side force direction. The
increases, CD starts decreasing between 8 and 10 m/s for
the Old Ball, whilst the New Ball shows instability at
14 m/s and an almost halving of CD by 18 m/s. For the
same speed (18 m/s), the smooth sphere shows only a
marginal decrease in CD. The decrease in CD for the Old
Ball is largely completed by 12 m/s, for the New Ball by
20 m/s and for smooth sphere by 30 m/s. It should be noted
that rather slow large-scale variations appeared through the
CD transition. Though it is indeed true that much larger
variation in CD appears in the subcritical and critical Re
regimes, the variation in the drag force is not large enough Fig. 5 Time variations of the side force coefficient CS and the
pressure coefficient Cp measured by the pressure hole B (see Fig. 2) at
to cause significant deflection in the ball trajectory because
90" in the case of supercritical Reynolds number Re = 4.0 9 105.
of the smallness of U2 in D = CDqU2A/2. These data are low-pass filtered with a cutoff frequency of 9 Hz
Wind tunnel measurements of soccer ball knuckle effect 33

value of CS changes around zero with a peak-to-peak value
about 0.15. The periods of the large-scale variations of both
coefficients are about 1 s.
The FFT analysis results for the CS and Cp data of Fig. 5
are shown in Fig. 6. For the FFT analysis, 8,192 data points
sampled at a frequency of 1 kHz for 8 s are used for both
cases. It should be noted that the peaks around 10 Hz in the
CS data are attributed to the oscillation of the ball support
system. Significant frequencies are found in the frequency
range, around 0.5 Hz for both CS and Cp. This range of
variation in the side force may correlate with the knuckle
effect on soccer ball flight. It is quite true in view of fluid
dynamic symmetry that the similar variation of the lift
should occur at an equal probability, which may cause a
kind of knuckle effect, though it was not measured in the
present experiment.

3.3 Result of tuft visualisation

The tuft visualisation images are analysed to identify the

Fig. 6 FFT analysis results for the (not low-pass filtered) data in
Fig. 5, a CS, b Cp. Re = 4.0 9 105 (supercritical regime)
general fluid dynamic feature around a ball to investigate
the cause of the knuckle effect. Tuft visualisation images
are shown in Fig. 7, which are a snapshot (picture a) in the
phase of high CS value (around 1 s) in the data shown in
Fig. 9a and a superposed image (picture b) of about 100
snapshots taken for 0.5 s of the same high CS phase. In this
particular phase, a pair of vortices appeared lining up and
down. The senses of the vortical motions are shown by the
arrows in the schematic illustration c. The vortex-induced
air velocity and the side force are also schematically shown
in this figure. In the picture b, in the white-appearing areas,
each tuft move extensively forming a group motion
induced by a pair vortex. The area and the configuration of
the whitish area where the tufts intensely flapped are taken
as a measure of the vortical structure in the wake, as will be
discussed in relation to Fig. 9c. Typical tuft visualisation
images of the New Ball are taken up for three Re regimes.
The superposed images, on which hundreds of successive
frames of video images are superimposed for a short

Fig. 7 The tuft grid

visualisation results; a a
snapshot and b a multiple-
exposed synthetic image in the
phase of high CS in the data
shown in Fig. 5. The senses of
the vortices and the directions of
the side force and the induced
flow are shown by arrows in c
34
Fig. 8 Typical tuft visualisation images (multiple-exposed synthetic image) of the New Ball for three Re. a for Re = 1.85 9 105 (subcritical Re
regime); b for Re = 3.0 9 105 (critical Re regime); c for Re = 3.8 9 105 (supercritical Re regime)
interval (roughly 1 s) for easy recognition of overall tuft
movement patterns, are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. For the
subcritical Re regime shown in Fig. 8a, the region of
moving tufts that indicates the separated wake region is
larger than the cross section of the ball being tested
because of the laminar separation and seems to have no
definite form. The reason for this is the region of moving
tufts was wide scale and the movement was fast compared
with the time for superposing. For the supercritical Re
regime shown in Fig. 8c, a structure can be recognised.
Basically, patterns with and without vortical structure are
irregularly repeated. In the phase when a clear pattern is
seen, a pair of aligned attached vortical structures, which
rather erratically rotates as a whole, is observed. When a
pair of vortical structures were vertically aligned, as
shown in Fig. 8c, No.1, the magnitude of the side force
reached a maximum. In the phase of horizontally aligned
vortices (Fig. 8c, No.4), after rotation of the vertically
aligned structure from No. 1 through No. 2 and No. 3, the
side force was almost zero, although the lift force might
reach a maximum. Occasionally, the vortex structure
collapsed and the tuft pattern became irregular as seen in
Fig. 8c, No. 5. In the critical Re regime, tuft patterns seem
to be less clear and intermittently fluctuated between the
sub- and supercritical ones as seen in Fig. 8b. This vor-
tical structure from the tuft visualisation results is con-
sistent with one cross section in the transition from a
horseshoe vortex formed immediately behind a ball
(smooth sphere) to a pair of stream-wise line vortices as
suggested by Taneda [4]. This horseshoe vortex is formed
in a similar way to the wing tip vortex rolling from wing
tips. It can be surmised that there is a qualitative
M. Murakami et al.
similarity between the aerodynamic phenomena behind
the New Ball and a smooth sphere. However, Taneda’s
experiment differed in that the stable vortical wake
structure that was observed in Taneda’s experiment in the
Re regime of 3.8 9 105–5 9 105 was hardly observed in
this study of the New Ball. For the New Ball in the Re
regime, a vortical wake structure almost randomly rotates
with an average interval of 1 s and sometimes disappears.
The mutual correlation between the time variations of
the side force coefficient CS and the wake configuration
seen from the tuft movement pattern is examined in more
detail in Fig. 9a, b. The time variation of the area of the
large-scale vortex region AW that looks whitish is shown in
Fig. 9c, for the regions in which the tufts move violently as
seen in the tuft visualisation result in Fig. 9b. All the data
in Fig. 9a, c and the images in Fig. 9b were simultaneously
taken during a single experimental run. The numbers, 1–4
inserted in the CS data in Fig. 9a correspond to those in the
tuft visualisation pictures in Fig. 9b. In all these numbered
images where the CS was large, a pair vortex structure
aligned vertically was seen. In other periods, a pair vortex
structure collapses or is rotating, and CS is smaller than
those in the periods 1–4. The time variation of the wake
area AW normalised by the projected area of the model ball
A is shown in Fig. 9c. It is seen that the wake area is
considerably smaller than A in contrast to the subcritical Re
regime where the area ratio is larger than unity, normally
about 1.4, and that the time variations of CS and the wake
area correspond. The knuckle effect is thought to appear in
response to the rotation, shedding and collapse of the
vortical structure behind a ball, occurring with an averaged
time scale of slightly longer than 1 s.
Wind tunnel measurements of soccer ball knuckle effect 35

Fig. 9 Correlation among the

time variations of a the side
force coefficient CS, b the
variation of the wake
configuration seen from the tuft
visualisation and c the area of
the wake region AW in the case
of supercritical Re regime for
the New Ball. The wake area AW
is normalised by the projected
area of the ball A. All these data
were simultaneously taken
during a single experiment
36 M. Murakami et al.

3.4 Re dependence of the side force

It is suggested in the previous sections that the erratic

motion, the knuckle effect, of a soccer ball is caused by
slow and large-scale variations of the side force and the lift
rather than the drag. The reason why the knuckle effect
appears only in the supercritical Re regime is understood if
the magnitude of the side force, not the side force coeffi-
cient, is examined. The time variations of the side force
S are shown in Fig. 10 for Re values typical of the three Re
regimes, subcritical (Re = 1.1 9 105), critical (1.9 9 105)
and supercritical (4.0 9 105). The magnitude of the
amplitude of the side force variation is considerably dif-
ferent depending on Re, because it is defined as a product
of U2 and CS qA/2. It is understood from the result that the
unsteady side force in the subcritical and critical Re
regimes is too small to cause a significant trajectory change
in ball flight that is the knuckle effect.
To investigate the Re dependence of the characteristic
time for the variations, FFT analysis was carried out on the
data in Fig. 10, of which result is shown in Fig. 11 for two
Re regimes, the critical Re regime in Fig. 11a and the
subcritical Re regime in Fig. 11b. The FFT result for the Fig. 11 Comparison of the FFT results for the data in Fig. 10.
supercritical Re regime is shown in Fig. 6a. In the super- a Re = 1.9 9 105 and b Re = 1.1 9 105
critical Re regime, the largest peaks appear in the fre-
quency range slightly smaller than 1 Hz, which may trajectory may occur once or at most twice during a ball
directly relate to the knuckle effect. Of course, also in the flight for 1 or 1.5 s, if it happens. It is stochastically pos-
critical Re regime a small peak appears around 1 Hz. sible that the knuckle effect does not appear during a short
However, the magnitude of the resulting side force from flight time of about 1 s, because the knuckle effect is
this 1 Hz component is too small to cause significant caused by an aerodynamic phenomenon that happens only
knuckle effect because of smallness of U2. The contribu- at the frequency once a second on average. This result that
tion of 0.2 Hz peak in the critical Re regime takes place too the knuckle effect appears at a frequency of about 0.5–1 Hz
scarcely. In the case of the subcritical Re regime, no sig- well agrees with previous field experiment data [4]. It may
nificant peaks are found in the frequency range of 1 Hz. be concluded that variation in the side force S with a fre-
Some peaks are also found around 10 Hz in every Re quency higher than several Hz is too rapid, and the
regime, which might be induced partly by the support stem amplitudes of the side force variation in the subcritical and
vibration. In soccer games, particular swerve of a ball flight critical Re regimes are too small for significant knuckle
effect on soccer ball flight to appear. The supposition that
the knuckle effect of a soccer ball occurs exclusively in the
supercritical Re range is also quite consistent with the
result of the previous field study [2]. It is, on the other
hand, known that a knuckle ball in baseball appears at Re
about 1.45 9 105 (*110 km/hr.) in the subcritical regime,
and in volleyball at Re 1.6–2.4 9 105 in the critical Re
regime. The critical Re for the drag crisis is about
2.1 9 105 in the case of baseball and about 1.9 9 105 in
the case of volleyball. Therefore, it is seen that so-called
knuckle effects appearing in three kinds of ball games are
different from the viewpoint of aerodynamics, although
they look similar in the phenomenon and thus are mixed up
and generally called a knuckle effect in all cases. Two
Fig. 10 Comparison of the side force data of the New ball for three
Re regimes: Re = 1.1 9 105 (subcritical regime), Re = 1.9 9 105 kinds of knuckle balls in baseball and soccer are clearly
(critical regime), Re = 4.0 9 105 (supercritical regime) distinguished in the reports by Mizota et al. [7, 15]. The
Wind tunnel measurements of soccer ball knuckle effect
former is a self-excited quasi-steady aerodynamic oscilla-
tion, a kind of fluttering phenomenon, while the latter is an
unsteady phenomenon, a buffeting phenomenon. The
knuckle effect of a soccer ball has been investigated from
the unsteady aerodynamic point of view. These unsteady
phenomena occur in wind tunnel experiments even of a
smooth sphere due to unavoidable turbulence in air flow
and imperfectness of shape of a model sphere. On the other
hand, Barber et al. [11] experimentally investigated the
knuckle effect of a soccer ball from the quasi-steady
aerodynamic point of view.
3.5 Pressure distribution on ball surface
The measurement of the surface pressure distribution on a
ball is another means to investigate the near field fluid
dynamic phenomena and resulting forces. This was carried
out while changing the angle of the pressure hole B on the
model ball (New Ball) from 0" (the stagnation point) to
180" relative to the air flow by altering the installation
angle of the ball support stem. The time-averaged data are
presented in Fig. 12 in the form of angle-Cp diagram for
three values of Re, subcritical, critical and supercritical
Reynolds numbers. For comparison, the theoretical
(potential theory) curve and the experimental data for a
smooth sphere [3] are also presented in the figure. The
theoretical curve is symmetrical with respect to an angle of
90", which results in zero pressure drag. Both the experi-
mental data satisfactorily agree with the potential theory
result around the stagnation point (0") irrespectively of the
Reynolds number. In the subcritical Re regime, Re = 1.62
9 105 for a sphere and 1.43 9 105 for the New Ball, the
data already deviate from the theoretical curve at 30", and
laminar boundary layer separation is seen around 80" for
both cases. In the case of a sphere, however, this is not so
clear because the data are averages of rapidly fluctuating
data in a large scale and the step width of the angle, 5", is
Fig. 12 Pressure distributions on the New Ball surface and on a
smooth sphere surface [3] in the form of angle-Cp diagram for several
values of Re. The theoretical (potential theory) curve is also shown
for comparison. The pressure was measured by using the pressure
hole B on the New Ball
37
too large as pointed out in Ref. [3]. However, in the case of
the New Ball, the separation can be much clearly identified.
In this case, the separation point does not fluctuate on the
ball surface, but is rather fixed due to the existence of seam
line as a triggering source. In the rear half of the models
beyond the separation point, both data are qualitatively
similar. In the critical Re regime, the sign of the laminar
separation is seen around 90" in the case of the New Ball,
and the pressure recovery for both cases past 120" is
similar for both ball types. It was concluded in the exper-
iments with a smooth sphere using the oil flow visualisa-
tion method by Taneda [4] that in the supercritical Re
regime, laminar separation appeared at about 100", the
reattachment around 117", and the turbulent separation
around 135" all on average. However, the data of a sphere
[3] do not show these separation characteristics clearly,
although the data do not conflict with those of the New
Ball. It is possible to identify only the laminar separation
clearly at about 90" in the case of the New Ball. The data
for a sphere agree more closely to the theoretical data for
the front half of a sphere compared with those of the New
Ball. The critical angles for boundary layer separation of
the New Ball, in general, seem slightly smaller by about
10" than those for a smooth sphere [4]. This discrepancy
may be attributed to the surface configuration of seams.
Furthermore, the variation in Cp caused by separation is
more noticeable for the New Ball than for a smooth sphere,
because the separation occurs at fixed positions due to the
existence of the seam line at slightly upstream of the sep-
aration point. In the case of a sphere, the separation point
fluctuates on a large scale over time, so that appearance of
separation on a mean Cp curve is less clear.
In the present experiment, the measurement errors
arising from air speed [16] and pressure [17] measurements
are both estimated at 1.0% giving a total error of less than
2%. On the other hand, the variation in pressure over time
is far larger than the measurement error. The time variation
of Cp for the New Ball resulting from that of the pressure
show weak periodicity, 2–5 Hz, observed in the subcritical
Re regime that disappears in the supercritical regime. In the
latter regime, slow and large amplitude fluctuation with an
average frequency of lower than 1 Hz is noticeable around
the separation point (115"). The fluctuation of the pressure
becomes large around the separation point for all values of
Re. This is clearly seen in the plot of the standard deviation
of the time variation of Cp against the angle as shown in
Fig. 13 for four values of Re. It is seen that the standard
deviation has a peak at the separation angle for every Re
value and, in general, is large behind the separation point.
It is suggested from this result that the separation point is
82" for Re = 1.42 9 105, 90" for Re = 1.9 9 105, 95" for
Re = 2.43 9 105, and 115" for Re = 4.2 9 105. These
data are consistent with those of Fig. 12.
38
Fig. 13 The standard deviation of the time variation of Cp plotted
against the angle for four Re in the case of the New Ball
The effect of the seam line configuration of the New
Ball on the separation angle was examined between the two
seam-line orientations with respect to the air flow, patterns
A and B as shown in Fig. 14 in the case of the critical Re
regime, 1.9 9 105. It is interesting to note that the laminar
separation angle differs by about 10" between the two seam
line patterns A and B. The separation angle is smaller in the
case of pattern A, for which a portion of a seam line tra-
versing the air flow located in the sensitive area just before
90" is likely to affect the separation, while that for B this is
located on the upstream side. In the supercritical Re
regime, the effect of seam line configuration could not
clearly be confirmed, or rather this effect was hidden in the
data fluctuation resulting from the stochastic aerodynamic
nature in this Re regime. Based on these results, the vari-
ation of surface pattern with respect to air flow due to slow
rotation of a ball has only a small influence on the knuckle
effect during an actual soccer ball flight.
Fig. 14 The effect of the ball
surface patterns of seam lines, A
and B, around the pressure hole
at the angle of 90", on the
surface pressure distribution in
the critical Re regime,
Re = 1.9 9 105. The effect on
the separation point is plainly
visible around 80"
M. Murakami et al.
3.6 Simulation of deflection of a ball flight trajectory
The simulation was carried out by numerically integrating
the simple two-dimensional equation of motion in a hori-
zontal plane for a material particle with the mass of a
soccer ball being subject to the side force as the only
external force during a flight time of 1.5 s for an initial ball
speed of 30 m/s. Using a 1-ms time step, experimental side
force data was substituted for the external force term. The
sets of the experimental side force data required for one
case of the computation are selected from those given in
Fig. 5 or 10 for 8 s in the supercritical Re regime by ran-
domly assigning the starting point of the total 1,500
experimental data in the form of successive time-varying
data for the total flight time of 1.5 s. Typical examples of
the computation result of the flight trajectory are shown in
Fig. 15, where the lateral deflection is plotted against time.
This simulation indicates that the final deflection of a flight
path after 1.5 s flight can differ greatly for each compu-
tation example depending on the time variation of the side
force. Some large deflections were predicted as well as
almost no deflection, and, furthermore, each flight path
may be largely different in the course of flight for the
comparable final deflection distances. The average of the
absolute value of final deflection among many computation
results is 5 cm for Re = 1.9 9 105, 20 cm for Re =
3.0 9 105, 23 cm for Re = 3.6 9 105 and 41 cm for
Re = 4.1 9 105.
3.7 Possible practical impact of the present result
The condition under which the knuckle effect of a soccer
ball appears is that a ball flies at a speed larger than
about 20 m/s, corresponding to Re in the supercritical
regime, with zero or very small spin rate. The knuckle
effect caused by unsteady aerodynamic force leads to
Wind tunnel measurements of soccer ball knuckle effect
Fig. 15 Simple simulation result of the deflection of a ball flight
trajectory based on the present side force data shown in Fig. 5. The
computation was carried out by numerically integrating the equation
of motion with the time-dependent external force for a flight time of
1.5 s with an initial ball velocity of 30 m/s (Re = 4.1 9 105). The
external force is randomly assigned as a set of sequential data for
1.5 s from the data in Fig. 5
rather unpredictable and potentially large deflections in the
trajectory of a soccer ball in flight. Thus, the knuckle ball is
an effective technique for use in a long free kick, as the
effect makes it difficult for a goalkeeper to catch the ball.
Upon a long free kick, it is rather hard to kick a ball that
does not spin at all but, in fact, a ball will spin quite slowly.
Slow spin would add only some subtle changes to the
knuckle effect through the triggering effect by seam lines
on the boundary layer separation. However, too large a spin
rate would diminish the knuckle effect, and instead cause
the Magnus force to curve the ball. On the other hand, a
short free kick would be less likely to cause significant
deflection in a ball flight trajectory because of short flight
time. It should be added that the present result can be
equally applied to the effect caused by the lift, which
results in the deflection in the vertical direction. If this
happens in a free kick, a goalkeeper would feel that the ball
unexpectedly falls or rises. When a new soccer ball is
designed, ball manufacturers keep it in mind that the
smoother surface of a ball makes the knuckle effect occur
the more frequently and to a greater degree.
4 Conclusions
Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate the
fundamental aspect of the aerodynamics of the knuckle
effect of a soccer ball.
• The knuckle effect is caused by large-amplitude side
force (or lift) and its variation in the frequency range of
about 0.5–1.0 Hz in the supercritical Reynolds number
regime. Owing to this unsteady low-frequency nature,
39
the knuckle effect of a soccer ball appears as a random
phenomenon for an actual soccer ball flight for a
limited flight time of about 1–1.5 s. The aerodynamic
force and its large-scale variation as the cause of the
knuckle effect is generated by the rather random,
dynamic behaviour of a pair vortex structure that is
occasionally created, rotates, collapses and then is re-
created.
• A simple numerical simulation result is that the
averaged absolute value of the deflection due to the
knuckle effect is about 0.4 m for the flight with an
initial velocity of 30 m/s for about 1.5 s.
Acknowledgments This research was financially supported by the
Grant-in-Aid-for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (18680045).
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