• Aluminum bats have qualities that make them drive the ball farther.girl up to bat in softball game image by pixelcarpenter from Fotolia.com
  
  Hitter and pitchers alike generally believe that aluminum bats make the ball travel farther and faster than wooden bats--though not as far as those made of composite materials or titanium. There have been few scientific analyses of the properties effects of aluminum bats, but some information is available from studies on the topic.
  
  

Center of Motion

• One quality of aluminum bats is a fast swing time. Scientific studies performed in the late 1970s and 1980s came to the conclusion that aluminum bats possessed no properties that made them superior to wooden bats, however more recent findings have confirmed the long-held suspicions of players. The analysis published in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics in 2001, entitled "Differences in Batted Ball Speed with Wood and Aluminum Baseball Bats: A Batting Cage Study," from J.J. Crisco and R.M. Greenwald, concludes that the bat's center of motion was more than 2 inches closer to the handle, resulting in significantly increased bat speed. The study estimates that this fact alone accounted for about 4.5 miles per hour of extra ball response.
  
  

Trampoline Effect

• Another notable aspect of the aluminum bat is the so-called "trampoline effect." The metal bat's hollow nature allows it to compress on impact with the ball. The rebound of the aluminum surface pushes the ball forward as if on a spring, causing it to "jump" a good deal farther than if it had impacted a wood surface. Solid substances, such as wood, compress less and cause the ball to compress instead. Without the rebounding trampoline effect the ball is deader than it would be off an aluminum bat.
  
  

Durability

• One of the more obvious aspects of the aluminum bat is its inability to break. Its durable metal construction ensures it will not shatter on impact and creates a more consistent ability to drive the ball farther, even on inside pitches that hit the thinner part of the bat.
  
  

Center of Percussion

• It has long been believed by players that the "sweet spot," an area of the bat from which balls travel farther and impacts are felt less on the hands, is fairly large in aluminum bats. But scientific evidence from the Crisco and Greenwald study does not validate this conclusion. There are different definitions for the term "sweet spot," but scientifically it may be roughly related to the "center of percussion," an area in which the bat bends the least while undergoing the force of impact with the ball. Aluminum bat sweet spots are no larger than those found on any other bat; however the study did conclude that balls flew farther--due to the effects already mentioned -- whether being hit on the sweet spot or elsewhere.