Golf Club Damper With Relief Cutouts For Sound And Feel
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cavity-back golf club heads face challenges in maintaining performance characteristics like coefficient of restitution (COR) and characteristic time (CT) due to stiff badges and dampers, which also affect the feel and sound of the club during impact, leading to unpleasant experiences for golfers.
Innovation Solution
A golf club head design featuring a damper that spans the striking face with relief cutouts and projections, reducing surface area contact with the rear surface to improve sound and feel while minimizing performance impact, and a shim or badge that closes the cavity to enhance stiffness and sound damping.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If stiff badges or dampers are placed in the cavity to dampen sound and vibration, then the feel and sound of the club at impact is improved, but the coefficient of restitution (COR) and characteristic time (CT) are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The damper is divided into multiple segments or zones with different stiffness characteristics. The cavity is segmented into regions with different damper densities, allowing selective damping of specific frequency ranges while preserving overall face flexibility and COR/CT performance.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the cavity receive different damper materials or configurations. High-frequency vibration zones receive stiffer damping material while low-frequency zones use softer material, optimizing both sound damping and ball performance characteristics locally throughout the cavity.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If stiff badges or dampers are placed in the cavity to dampen sound and vibration, then the feel of the club is improved, but weight is added to the golf club head
Solution Approach 1:
The damper utilizes porous or cellular material structures that provide high damping efficiency per unit weight. The porous structure allows vibration energy absorption through fluid or air movement within the pores, achieving effective damping with significantly reduced material mass compared to solid dampers.
Solution Approach 2:
The damper employs composite material construction combining lightweight materials with high damping properties. Multiple material layers or composite structures are used to achieve optimal damping-to-weight ratio, reducing overall club head weight while maintaining vibration control.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If stiff badges or dampers are placed in the cavity to dampen sound and vibration, then the sound damping is improved, but the height of the center of gravity (CG) of the club face is increased
Solution Approach 1:
Counterweight elements are strategically positioned in the lower portion of the cavity to offset the upward CG shift caused by the damper. These counterweights are placed to create a balancing moment that pulls the overall CG back down to the desired position, maintaining proper club balance and performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The damper configuration is optimized in the horizontal plane rather than vertically, spreading damping material laterally across the cavity width. This dimensional redistribution provides sound damping effectiveness while minimizing vertical CG displacement, as the damping function is achieved through horizontal material distribution rather than vertical stacking.
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 maintains acceptable COR and CT values, enhances the feel and sound of the club at impact, and provides improved vibration damping without significantly reducing performance, offering a better user experience.
Implementation Method 1
A damper is positioned within the cavity and extends from the heel portion to the toe portion. A front surface of the damper includes one or more relief portions, and the front surface of the damper contacts a rear surface of the face portion between the one or more relief portions.
Implementation Method 2
manufacturers of cavity-back golf clubs often place acoustic or vibration dampers in the cavity to provide sound and vibration damping
Data Source
AI summary
A damper is provided within the cavity of a golf club head and spans substantially the full length of the striking face from heel-to-toe of the golf club head. One or more cutouts and/or other relief is provided in the damper to reduce the surface area of the damper that contacts the rear surface of the striking face. By reducing the surface area that the damper contacts the rear surface of the striking face, the full length damper improves the sound and feel of the golf club head at impact and only minimally reduces performance of the golf club head. For example, the one or more cutouts and/or other relief maintains face flexibility, characteristic time (CT) and coefficient of restitution (COR) of the striking face.