Flexible Trowel Rake for Golf Bunker Grooming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional sand grooming vehicles and rakes struggle with damaging bunker lips and liners due to rigid plates, and require separate operations for scarifying and smoothing granular surfaces, leading to inefficiencies and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle-mounted grooming rake with flexible, pivoting trowel members and a hitch system that allows for zero-radius turns and adjustable trowel configurations, enabling effective engagement with contoured surfaces and combining scarifying and smoothing functions in a single pass.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If rigid plates and rake teeth are used in traditional smoothing rake sections, then the sand can be effectively groomed and smoothed, but the bunker lip or underlying artificial liner material can be caught on, ripped and damaged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces rigid metal plates and teeth with flexible rubber plates that can conform to the bunker contours. The rubber material flexes to engage the sand for effective grooming while its flexibility prevents it from catching on or ripping the bunker lip and underlying liner material, thus resolving the contradiction between grooming effectiveness and damage prevention.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the physical parameter of the grooming surface from rigid to flexible by using rubber plates instead of metal. This parameter change allows the plates to maintain effective sand engagement through their flexibility while preventing damage to sensitive bunker components, simultaneously achieving both grooming productivity and damage prevention.
2Ease of operation
If traditional smoothing rake sections are used with rigid plates, then sand smoothing can be performed, but the configuration does not always adequately reach and contact the sand, particularly along the periphery where steeply curved sides transition to flatter bottom portions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the rake sections dynamic by allowing them to pivot and tilt independently to follow the contours of the bunker. The rubber plates are positioned at angles that enable them to flex and conform to varying bunker geometries, ensuring adequate sand contact along the periphery and eliminating ungroomed strips, thus achieving both proper sand contact and uniform grooming coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible rubber plates can bend and conform to the complex contours of modern bunkers with steeply angled sides. This flexibility allows the plates to maintain contact with the sand surface in areas where rigid plates would gap or lose engagement, ensuring adequate sand contact and uniform grooming coverage throughout the entire bunker area.
3Ease of manufacture
If separate operations are used for scarifying and smoothing granular surfaces, then each function can be performed with dedicated equipment, but operational steps and costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines scarifying and smoothing functions into a single integrated rake assembly. The rubber plates with embedded teeth or protrusions can simultaneously perform both scarifying (loosening) and smoothing (leveling) operations in one pass, eliminating the need for separate operations and dedicated equipment, thus improving operational efficiency while maintaining functional effectiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The rubber plate rake sections are designed with multi-functionality to perform both scarifying and smoothing operations. The plates can be configured with teeth or protrusions for scarifying while maintaining the smooth rubber surface for leveling, allowing a single piece of equipment to replace multiple specialized tools, thereby increasing productivity and reducing operational costs.
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle attached rake for grooming a granular surface includes a center section and two pivotal wing sections that carry rubber trowel members having a serrated lower edge that forms a plurality of downwardly extending teeth. The tips of the teeth are located on a large diameter, upwardly facing curve to better groom upwardly curved side walls in a golf course bunker. When the rake is attached to a ZRT vehicle, the wing section on the inside of a zero radius turn is automatically lifted up off the granular surface by a flexible tether that becomes taut. Another embodiment of the rake includes a rigid plate behind a rubber trowel member with a lower portion of the trowel member folding forwardly during reverse motion of the vehicle such that the plate engages the granular surface to act as a bulldozer blade.