Bat Handle with Parallel Planes and Apertures for Flexibility Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current baseball and softball bats do not effectively optimize flexibility characteristics between the handle and barrel, which affects batted ball performance based on individual swing speed, leading to suboptimal performance for different players.
Innovation Solution
A bat design featuring a handle with a longitudinal axis and parallel planes defining apertures, a cross piece perpendicular to the planes, and optional external supports to regulate flexibility, enhancing deflection characteristics and energy return during ball impact.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If the handle is made stiff to provide a rigid structure, then structural strength is improved, but flexibility and energy return during impact are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The handle is designed with non-uniform wall thickness, being thicker at the proximal end and thinner at the distal end. This local variation in thickness creates different stiffness characteristics at different locations, providing both structural strength where needed and flexibility where needed for energy return during impact.
Solution Approach 2:
The handle is designed to be dynamically flexible rather than statically rigid. The tapered thickness profile allows the handle to deflect and return during the impact phase, providing energy return, while maintaining sufficient stiffness during the swing phase. This dynamic behavior is achieved through the geometric configuration rather than active control mechanisms.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the handle is made flexible to increase energy return, then impact performance is improved, but structural strength and control are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The handle features localized thickness variations with a proximal thicker section for strength and a distal thinner section for flexibility. This local quality differentiation allows the handle to provide both structural integrity and impact flexibility simultaneously, resolving the contradiction between strength and flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The handle design changes the geometric parameter of wall thickness along its length. By varying the thickness parameter from proximal to distal, the handle achieves different mechanical properties at different locations, enabling both strength and flexibility without requiring separate structural elements.
3Ease of manufacture
If uniform thickness is used throughout the handle, then manufacturing simplicity is improved, but flexibility characteristics and performance are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of uniform thickness, the handle incorporates local thickness variations with a proximal thicker portion and distal thinner portion. This local quality differentiation enhances flexibility characteristics and impact performance while remaining manufacturable through standard extrusion or molding processes that can accommodate variable cross-sections.
Solution Approach 2:
The variable thickness profile creates a dynamic flexibility characteristic that improves impact performance. The thinner distal section allows greater deflection and energy return during impact, while the thicker proximal section maintains structural integrity, achieving enhanced performance without excessive manufacturing complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design improves batted ball performance by adjusting flexibility characteristics, accommodating varying swing speeds and providing a stiff, flexible, or intermediate response based on impact orientation, enhancing player performance.
Implementation Method 1
when the contact time between the ball and the bat match the time required for the bat to deflect and return to its original position, the COR increases because some of the vibrational energy in the bat was returned to the ball
Implementation Method 2
The research has shown that the COR was dependent on both the flexural stiffness, with reference to the axis of a bat, and the circumferential stiffness, or elasticity, of the bat
Data Source
AI summary
Included herein is a bat for striking a ball. The bat comprises a barrel portion, transition portion attached to the barrel portion, and a handle portion attached to the transition portion. The handle portion includes a longitudinal axis and a plurality of planes substantially parallel to the axis. The adjacent planes of the plurality of planes are positioned to define apertures substantially parallel to the axis. The planes and apertures are positioned to vary the flexibility of the handle and improve bat performance for a given swing speeds.