Vibration attenuation of tennis racquets using tuned vibration absorbers

Abstract

Modern tennis racquets are made of advanced composite materials resulting in significantly lighter and stiffer structures than traditional wooden or metal racquets. While these high-tech structures have had a profound effect on improving the performance of tennis players, modified structural dynamic behaviour and in particular the vibrational response felt by the players has caused some concern thus raising particular interest in vibration attenuation and the application of dynamic vibration absorbers in modern tennis racquet technology. The use of dynamic vibration absorbers is common in engineering applications where there is a need to attenuate high vibration levels caused by resonant response. The effect of using tuned vibration absorbers to attenuate certain key modes of vibration of a tennis racquet is examined in this paper. Attachment of tuned absorbers has traditionally been affected by attaching to antinodal locations of the primary structure. This does not necessarily convey the effectiveness of attachment at other available locations. To overcome this, an effectiveness criterion is formulated and used to indicate the most beneficial attachment location for the devices. The impulse responses obtained from the model are indicative, if not absolute, that tuned vibration absorbers with small mass values could prove effective in the attenuation of key structural modes of the racquet.