FLEXIBLE AND INCOMPRESSIVE GOAL NETS IN SOCCER

Abstract

Sports nets and hammocks are usually not pre-tensioned and too slack and flexible to resist compressive forces, which the high pre-stressing would counterbalance in tension structures. Due to this incompressibility, the low-tension nets may exhibit extreme sags in the deformed configuration, which may be one computational problem in analysis. The present study is concerned with this particular, but interesting issue and proposes some modelling ideas to simulate the static and dynamic response of flexible and incompressible nets, which are not frequently treated in engineering applications. Special attention is paid to dynamics of hexagon-mesh goal nets used in FIFA World Cup 2002 in Japan and South Korea. In numerical examples, it is illustrated that the hexagon-mesh net is much better than the square-mesh net, especially for more enthusiasm in stadium and also for better visual effects in TV.