Playing without shaking

In tennis, when the racket hits the ball, the player feels an uncomfortable vibration that, over time, can cause physical damages, such as tennis elbow. To avoid these vibrations, players place a small piece called a vibration dampener, usually made of rubber or silicone, on the strings. Once this piece is set, the comfort of playing raises immediately. In this project, we wanted to study the tennis racket’s vibration and how a vibration dampener can attenuate it. We first wanted to know at which frequencies the tennis racket vibrates and how these vibrations spread throughout the racket. After that, to understand how a vibration dampener works, we created an innovative device, a kind of guitar-racket, which enabled us to measure the efficiency of a vibration dampener.