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GOLF CLUB FACE AND BALL IMPACT
🏠 Hertzian contact + plate-bending flexure
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Interactive Tool · Contact Mechanics

Golf Club Face and Ball Impact

Where does a driver's "spring-back" actually come from — the ball or the face? This tool models both as real springs in contact: the ball's core compresses per Hertzian contact theory, and the clubface flexes per classical clamped-plate bending theory. The two act in series, sharing the same contact force but splitting the compression between them — so you can see the exact percentage split, and how it drives the resulting coefficient of restitution. Companion to Golf Club Dynamics, which uses COR to simulate ball flight, and to Golf Club Face Fracture Review, which picks up where this tool's fatigue-life estimate stops — growing an assumed crack from the peened depth to failure with Paris' Law.

Clubface

Ball & Impact

Material loss factors (adjustable, calibrated)
Current Configuration — All Variables In One View

Every slider and dropdown above is reflected here — change any input and this diagram updates with it, so you can see the whole configuration at a glance instead of reading each field separately.

Where the "give" comes from
Force-deflection hysteresis (energy loss)

Shaded area = energy lost to heat; dashed line = unload path.

Contact force vs. time
Contact Mechanics Results
Effective modulus E*
Face stiffness kface
Peak contact force
Peak ball compression
Peak face deflection
Ball share of compliance
Face share of compliance
Contact time
Energy lost in ball
Energy lost in face
Resulting COR
Surface Treatment

Default depth (496 µm) is calibrated directly to Tyrida's own Rolls-Royce Ti64 XRD data (−826 MPa surface, −110 MPa at 1000 µm).

Peak Bending Stress (Two Fatigue-Critical Locations)
Edge (front surface, tension near the clamp):
Center (back surface, tension at the impact point):
Residual Stress at Each Location
At edge (front):
At center (back):
Fatigue Life (Goodman Mean-Stress Correction + Basquin S-N)
Location No LSP With LSP (current settings) Life Change
Edge (front, treated side if Front/Both selected)
Center (back, opposite side if only Front/Back selected)

Try "Front only" and watch the Center row: a one-sided treatment can measurably shorten the untreated surface's life via the self-equilibrating counter-stress the compressive layer requires. Try "Both" to see why treating both sides (or reaching full depth) avoids that trade-off.

Fatigue Life Sensitivity — Every Variable, One Family of Graphs

Each small chart sweeps one variable across its full slider range while holding every other input at its current value above — so you can see which variables actually move the needle on fatigue life, and which barely matter. Green = edge (front, tension near the clamp), red = center (back, tension at the impact point). Y-axis is cycles to failure, log scale. The current value of each variable is marked with a vertical line.

Modulus Sensitivity — ±30% of Ti-6Al-4V

Modulus is the single driving term behind every result below: this sweeps face modulus E from 70% to 130% of the Ti-6Al-4V baseline (16.5 Msi) — independent of any specific named alloy — holding thickness, speed, ball, and peening settings at their current values above. Green dashed line = Ti-6Al-4V (16.5 Msi); purple dashed line = T9S+ baseline (15.0 Msi); red dashed line = whatever modulus is currently active above (including a custom override, if enabled).

Detailed analysis — methodology and equations

This tool models the ball and clubface as two springs in series — Hertzian contact for the ball, clamped circular plate bending for the face — to compute COR, peak force, and fatigue life via Goodman + Basquin. See the Golf Analysis Tools User Handbook for how to use this tool's inputs and outputs.