Evaluation of commercially available sands for golf course bunker use. (4633)
Authors:
C. Bigelow* - Purdue University
G.A. Hardebeck - Purdue University, West Lafayette
Abstract:
Numerous sand sized mineral products are commercially available for golf course bunker use. The major desirable qualitative characteristic for the sand is that they resist moderate penetration and do not produce a fried-egg golf ball lie. Over twenty five commercially available sand materials were collected from throughout the United States and analyzed for a variety of physical properties and visual characteristics including; particle size, sphericity, color, angle of repose and resistance to penetration using a modified pocket penetrometer. All sands were compared to medium/coarse sized glass beads. Most of the sands examined had sub-angular to angular sphericity. All other properties were highly variable. The angle of repose ranged from 21.8 to 37.3 degrees with a mean of 32.2. The
geometric mean diameter of the sands ranged from 0.48 to 0.95 mm and resistance to penetration values ranged from 1.0 to 3.3 kg cm2 compared to 0.1 for the glass beads. Although the values were extremely variable, a trend was observed toward higher penetrometer readings with greater angles of repose and geometric mean diameter. This would be associated with coarse textured, angular sands. Further studies will continue to evaluate other properties to help laboratories and golf course managers better predict bunker sand performance.
Speaker Information: Cale Bigelow, Purdue University, 915 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2054; Phone: 765-494-4692; E-mail: [email protected]
Session Information: Tuesday, November 2, 2004, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM Presentation Start: 1:00 PM (Poster Board Number: 1401)