Temperature and Energy Loss of a Bouncing Basketball

Abstract

A basketball ranging in temperature from 255 K to 323 K (-18 to 50°C) was released from a height of 1.92 m and tracked with a motion detector as it bounced to measure the effects on energy loss related to changes in the Young’s modulus of the basketball wall. It was found that there is a linear relationship between the coefficient of restitution and the temperature of the basketball within the range tested. The effect of pressure change with changing temperature was factored out of the energy loss, and was also found to decrease linearly with increasing temperature.