Table Tennis Rubber: Tribological Characterization

To characterize rubber coverings, three parameters, namely, speed, spin, and control, are normally used. However, all three of them appear to be the characteristics of the ball being hit and not those of the racket covering itself. The expert's method of valuation complicates the rubber characterization even more, so the speed-spin-control tables found in the distributors' catalogs are traditionally referred to as "mystic and non-objective" ones. Based on a more scientific approach, here we report on a reliable tribological method allowing to characterize the frictional behavior of rubber racket covering unequivocally using three simple non-dimensional parameters. To demonstrate its performance, 8 different popular rubbers, 4 pimples-in and 4 pimples-out ones, are tested.