Item Details

abstract

There has been research that has determined that the drag forces on a non-spinning volleyball's boundary layer causes the ball to swerve on its trajectory. The purpose of this paper is to develop a numerical model for wave propagation on a volleyball, which we model as a smooth sphere, to show that the waves lead to some turbulence on the flight path of a volleyball. By applying various initial conditions to the three-dimensional wave equation, we can observe waves travelling on its surface. We first solve the wave equation with spherical coordinates using separation of variables. For our model, we study the wave equation restricted to a sphere and describe it solutions, which are known as spherical harmonics. By using the software \emph{Matlab}, we are able to implement our equations and initial conditions to observe the wave oscillations on the volleyball.

subject

Mathematics

Volleyball

contributor

Novacek, Katherine (author)

Parsley, Jason (committee chair)

Raynor, Sarah (committee member)

Robinson, Stephen (committee member)

date

2013-01-09T09:35:11Z (accessioned)

2013-01-09T09:35:11Z (available)

2012 (issued)

degree

Mathematics (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37650 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

Observing Wave Propagation of a Float Serve on a Volleyball

type

Thesis