Digital-Twin of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Specified Energy Rebound Testing Device: Kinetic-Energy Absorption by a Basketball Rim and Backboard Modeled with ANSYS Workbench Finite Element Analysis
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In a previous publication, the ANSYS Workbench 2024R1 student edition was used to create a finite element model of a basketball rim and backboard. This finite element model included the use of steel for the rim and its mount, a tempered glass backboard, and an aluminum frame behind the backboard. After a mesh was created, fixed support boundary conditions were applied to the four corners of the aluminum frame. Using the Workbench Modal Analysis System, finite element mode shapes and frequencies were compared to the empirical modal analysis previously done at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. After a mesh refinement, five mode shapes and frequencies had a cross-correlation of 98.09% between the theoretical finite element analysis and previously published empirical modal analysis, specifically where the rim was vi-brating in the vertical direction, which was the direction that the accelerometer was aligned for the empirical modal analysis. This vertical direction was also the direction of the impulse applied by the Energy Rebound Testing Device (ERTD), which was the focus of this study. This paper is a follow-on to the original finite element analysis, where the Energy Rebound Testing Device was also modeled, this time using the ANSYS Workbench 2024R2 student edition The first modal model was of the ERTD in isolation in the Workbench Modal Analysis system, and the natural frequency modeled via finite element analysis, 12.776 Hz, compared favorably with the empirical modal analysis value of 12.72 Hz. The second modal model, also in the Workbench Modal Analysis system, was of the ERTD rotatably-attached to a basketball rim and backboard. This second model was then imported into the Transient Structural Analysis system and then used to confirm the hypothesis that the ERTD adopted by the NCAA for the sport of Basketball was indeed responsive to changes in rim and backboard stiffness via changes in the respective Young’s Moduli.
Source: Vibration
Authors: Daniel Winarski, Kip P. Nygren, Tyson Winarski
Institutions: University of Arizona, Arizona State University
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,930
OpenAlex ID: W4408051260