Development of a System to Measure Radius of Curvature and Speed of Hammer Head during Turns in Hammer Throw

The hammer throw is an event in which a competitor tries to throw the hammer, a 16-pound (7.26 kg) ball attached to a handle with a length of piano wire (a length of 117.5 to 121.5 cm from ball to the inside of the handle), as far as possible within an arc of 35° from a concrete circle with a diameter of 2.13 m, combining a rotational movement with a translational movement. It is possible to say that the throwing distance is determined at the instant of release. The factors involved in determining the distance include the speed of the hammer head at the moment of release (speed of release), angle of release, height of release and air resistance, but of these the most important factor is speed of release (Murofushi, 1994). For example, Murofushi (1982), standardizing the distance value at 80m80, with initial conditions of speed of release 28.2 m/s, angle of release 38° and height of release 1.7 m, ignoring air resistance, investigated the influence of speed of release, angle of release and height of release on distance through simulations. He reported results showing that changes in the speed of release had great influence, while the influence of changes in height of release was small. In addition, Ikegami et al. (1994) investigated the coefficient of correlation between the records and initial speed (speed of release), initial horizontal speed, initial vertical speed, angle of release, height of release and direction of release among the top six competitors at the Tokyo Athletics World Championship 1991. They report that the only significant correlation found was with initial speed, Development of a System to Measure Radius of Curvature and Speed of Hammer Head during Turns in Hammer Throw