Golf Club Head Stiffening Rods and Variable Face Thickness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing golf club heads fail to effectively increase ball speed while reducing stress on the striking face during impact without significantly increasing the club's mass.
Innovation Solution
A golf club head design featuring a variable face thickness pattern and stress-reducing metal rods or tubes, specifically hollow or solid titanium alloy rods, connecting the crown and sole sections to minimize stress on the striking face without contacting it, optimizing the placement and configuration to enhance ball speed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If interior structures are added to reduce stress on the striking face, then ball speed is improved and stress is reduced, but the mass of the golf club head increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs hollow tubes instead of solid rods as interior structures. These hollow tubes provide the necessary structural support and stress reduction functionality while significantly reducing the mass compared to solid equivalents. The hollow configuration maintains structural integrity for stress reduction while minimizing weight penalty, directly addressing the contradiction between strength enhancement and weight increase.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes titanium alloy material for the interior structures (both hollow tubes and solid rods). Titanium alloy provides an optimal balance of high strength-to-weight ratio, enabling the structures to effectively reduce stress on the striking face while minimizing the mass increase. This composite material approach allows achieving the desired stress reduction functionality with minimal weight penalty.
2Speed
If the striking face section is made thinner to increase ball speed, then ball speed is improved, but the stress on the striking face during impact increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces interior structures (hollow tubes or solid rods) as intermediary elements between the crown and sole sections. These intermediary structures provide structural support to the thin striking face, distributing and reducing the stress during impact. This allows the striking face to be made thinner for improved ball speed while the intermediary structures prevent excessive stress concentration, resolving the contradiction between speed enhancement and stress resistance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent addresses the two-dimensional trade-off between face thickness and stress resistance by introducing a third dimension - interior structures extending through the club head body. These three-dimensional structures provide stress distribution and structural support without directly interfering with the face thickness optimization, enabling the striking face to be thinner for speed while maintaining stress resistance through the volumetric interior support structures.
Data Source
AI summary
A golf club head comprising a body, a variable face thickness pattern, and a plurality of solid metal stiffening rods, and which satisfies the equation Vballnorm≥0.0356x+140.82, is disclosed herein. The body comprises a face, a sole, and a return section, and defines a hollow interior. Each of the rods extends from the return section to the sole within the hollow interior proximate the face to reduce stresses placed on the face during impact with a golf ball. The rods are all located within 1 inch of a rear surface of the face measured along a plane normal to the center of the face, and are spaced a distance of 0.500 to 2.00 inch from one another within the hollow interior. The variable face thickness pattern preferably comprises a plurality of concentric rings, with a center ring having a thickness that is less than a thickness of an intermediary ring.