Golf Club Shaft Layering for Impact Strength and Swing Feel
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current golf club shafts lack a balance between high impact strength and a good feeling, with existing designs failing to provide both sufficient rigidity and flexibility for improved performance.
Innovation Solution
A golf club shaft design featuring full-length layers and a tip-end partial layer with an inner glass fiber reinforced layer, where the weight distribution and orientation of layers are strategically optimized to enhance impact strength and flexibility, including a bias layer, straight layer, and hoop layer for torsional and flexural rigidity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a shaft is designed with high rigidity to improve impact strength, then impact strength is improved, but the shaft feels too rigid during swinging reducing flexibility
Solution Approach 1:
The shaft is divided into multiple layers with different material compositions and orientations. The inner layer contains high-modulus carbon fibers for impact strength, while outer layers use lower-modulus fibers and glass fibers to provide flexibility and reduce rigid feeling during swinging.
Solution Approach 2:
The shaft employs a composite structure combining carbon fibers of different elastic moduli (high-modulus and low-modulus) along with glass fibers. This multi-material approach allows simultaneous achievement of high impact strength through high-modulus fibers and good flexibility through low-modulus and glass fibers.
2Weight of moving object
If the shaft weight is reduced to improve swing ease, then ease of operation is improved, but impact strength may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
Different regions of the shaft are reinforced with materials specifically suited for their functional requirements. The tip region uses high-modulus carbon fibers for impact strength, while other regions use lighter materials. This localized reinforcement maintains impact strength while minimizing overall weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The shaft uses a composite of carbon fibers and glass fibers with different densities and mechanical properties. This allows weight optimization by selecting materials that provide necessary strength-to-weight ratios in different shaft regions.
3Ease of operation
If the center of gravity is positioned closer to the tip to improve flexibility, then flexibility is improved, but stability during impact may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The shaft design incorporates layers that can dynamically respond to different loading conditions. During normal swinging, the lighter center of gravity position provides flexibility, while during impact, the layered composite structure activates to provide stability and energy absorption.
Solution Approach 2:
The multi-layer composite structure with different fiber orientations and material properties allows the shaft to exhibit different mechanical characteristics under different loading conditions, providing both flexibility during swing and stability during impact.
Data Source
AI summary
A shaft 6 includes full length layers provided wholly in a longitudinal direction of the shaft, and a tip end partial layer provided on a tip part of the shaft. The full length layers include a bias layer and a straight layer. The tip end partial layer includes an inner glass fiber reinforced layer. When a full length of the shaft is defined as Ls, and a distance between a tip end of the shaft and a center of gravity G of the shaft is defined as Lg, a ratio (Lg/Ls) is equal to or greater than 0.52 and equal to or less than 0.65. A weight of the shaft is equal to or less than 65 g. Preferably, the inner glass fiber reinforced layer is positioned inside the bias layer.