James Cain
MANE 6980
Project Ideas
8/29/14
Finite Element Study to Compare the Performance of Wood and Metal Baseball Bats
To save money over the cost of constantly breaking wooden baseball bats, the NCAA
implemented the use of metal bats in 1974. Since then, the number of homeruns has increased from
0.42 per game in 1973 to as high as 1.06 per game in 1998. However, due to the increased number of
injuries to pitchers attributed to the high exit velocities of the ball of a metal bat, the NCAA
implemented a stricter Ball-Bat Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) standard in 2011. This stricter
standard dropped the number of homeruns per game to 0.52 in 2011. This project will use finite
element analysis to assess the performances of wood, aluminum, and aluminum BBCOR bats and then
compare the performances to experimental data. This project will also look at the effects that different
variables, such as bat barrel diameter, swing speed, and bat mass, have on the performance of the bats.