We Simulated a Pro Soccer Kick. Here’s Why It Bends | SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:02][Enthusiastic sport dad clapping] Looking good guys.

[00:00:04]Nice hustle.

[00:00:07]Oh man, I love football.

[00:00:09]Both of them.

[00:00:11]The type we play in the US with a prolate spheroid ball and the type we hear in North America call "soccer."

[00:00:18]Football is uninterrupted action, on the fly strategy, and it's super accessible.

[00:00:24]All you need is a truncated icosahedron, or you know, just any spherical ball, and you're all set to play.

[00:00:32]It requires intense stamina and athleticism from its players and it's super local so that anyone can get into the excitement, like when someone on your favorite city or country's team scores a-- GOAL!!

[00:00:51]Great job, man.

[00:00:52]Hey, Ryan.

[00:00:53]I've got a question for you.

[00:00:55]When you kick the ball like that, how do you do it? To make it curve?

[00:00:59][Ryan] I focus on hitting the ball on the outside with the inside of my foot and finishing with my foot high so the ball curves.

[00:01:07][Mike] Man, that is absolutely insane to me.

[00:01:09][Ryan] I've been doing it all my life since I was a little kid and it takes a lot of practice and I love every moment of it.

[00:01:14][Mike] Well, nicely done.

[00:01:15][Ryan] Thank you.

[00:01:18]It's so insane to me that Ryan can just do that.

[00:01:21]He's leveraging physics to curve the ball all while running and making a million other decisions at the same time.

[00:01:29]There's a lot of force involved and precision.

[00:01:33]Now I'm a huge physics nerd, so I'd like to dig a little deeper.

[00:01:37]Like, what exactly is going on when Ryan makes that curve happen?

[00:01:42]I have an idea.

[00:01:43]Let's take a look with SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation to virtually test a ball in motion and find out.

[00:01:51]With SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, setting up this study is a breeze.

[00:01:55]I'll start with defining a time-dependent study since the air flow around the ball will change as it moves.

[00:02:02]I want to include a rotating region, set the fluid to air, then dial in the kick velocity, 27.5 meters per second, the speed of a professional free kick.

[00:02:15]This is where the aerodynamics get interesting.

[00:02:19]I'm gonna further define the rotation 450 RPM, roughly what elite players generate at the point of contact.

[00:02:27]After I've defined the boundary conditions, I'll lock in the calculation goals, velocity and pressure.

[00:02:34]These are the two forces governing every meter of the ball's flight, but before I solve it, I mesh the domain.

[00:02:41]The mesh divides the surrounding air into millions of discrete cells, capturing every shift in flow, every gradient across the ball's surface.

[00:02:51]I run the simulation for one second of real flight, and now we can see what the air is actually doing.

[00:02:57]Velocity first.

[00:02:59]We can watch the flow accelerate, wrap, and separate as it meets the spitting surface.

[00:03:06]One side moves faster, the other side slows down.

[00:03:10]That asymmetry isn't a curiosity, it's the mechanism behind the bend.

[00:03:15]Now let's look at pressure.

[00:03:17]We can see lower pressure on one side, higher on the other from the change in air velocity occurring around the ball.

[00:03:25]That imbalance generates a force, not aligned with the motion but perpendicular to it.

[00:03:31]This is called the Magnus Effect.

[00:03:35]That's why the ball curves.

[00:03:37]Not a gut instinct.

[00:03:38]Not personal experience.

[00:03:40]Actual physics measured and visualized with flow simulation.

[00:03:46]I can take this further.

[00:03:47]Using surface parameters, I can calculate the exact lateral force acting on the ball in flight.

[00:03:53]We're looking at the swerve quantified.

[00:03:56]Now, let's push it.

[00:03:58]I swapped the geometry from the four-panel official match ball to an original ball used in the 1930s gameplay to compare.

[00:04:06]No rebuild required.

[00:04:09]Flow simulation updates the CFD model automatically.

[00:04:12]Same study, new shape.

[00:04:15]Re-meshed to accommodate for the change in geometry and rerun.

[00:04:19]Now look closely at the difference.

[00:04:23]The old ball's laced geometry triggers vortex shedding a disruption pattern the others simply do not produce.

[00:04:30]This isn't cosmetic.

[00:04:31]It directly affects the flight behavior, and the numbers confirm it.

[00:04:36]The 1930s ball fluctuates from one to 4.25 newtons of lateral force.

[00:04:41]The official match ball holds consistent to around 4.5 Newtons.

[00:04:46]Same kick, same speed, same spin, different ball, measurably more curve.

[00:04:53][Mike] Pretty cool, huh?

[00:04:54][Soccer crew] Yep. That's awesome.

[00:04:55]Anything else you guys want to check out?

[00:04:57](players chattering) Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:05:01]Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:05:03]This might take a minute, but with SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation and the other tools in our simulation suite, I think we've got it covered.

[00:05:10]Okay, so who said "around the world hocus pocus," and are we still talking about football here?

[00:05:15](bright music)