High Performance Computing Analyzes Beckham's Bend
Researchers using high-performance computing (HPC) technology and computational fluid dynamics software (CFD) have gone after a truly noble pursuit. They are trying to understand how the stars of world football (AKA "soccer" for our American readers) can seem to make the ball "bend" or change in flight.
"Soccer Sim" is a project at the University of Sheffield (UK) Sports Engineering Research Group, with support from Fluent Europe (maker of CFD software). They have analyzed the physics of David Beckham's famous penalty kick goal against Greece in World Cup 2001, and found that the air turbulance around the ball changed from turbulant to laminar several yards from the goal, allowing the ball to change trajectory and shoot into the top corner of the goal.
A complete summary of the research is at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics website.
