Archery Bow Limb Pocket Spacer With Extended Contact Surface
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional archery bow limb pocket spacers often lack sufficient contact surface area, leading to overstressing and potential failure of bow limbs during flexion due to inadequate engagement and support.
Innovation Solution
The design of spacer members with extended contact surfaces and part-rounded portions that increase the surface area contact with bow limbs, including flexible wings and raised limb separators, to enhance support and prevent overstress.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional limb pocket spacers are used with limited contact surfaces, then the device complexity is reduced and manufacturing is easier, but the bow limbs are more likely to overstress and fail due to insufficient support area
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer design extends contact surfaces in multiple dimensions by incorporating flexible wings that protrude laterally from the main body, and raised limb separators that extend vertically. This multi-dimensional expansion of contact area provides comprehensive support to the bow limb without requiring a completely complex structural redesign, thus improving reliability while maintaining reasonable device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The spacer is divided into distinct functional segments: a main body portion, flexible wings extending laterally, and raised limb separators extending vertically. Each segment performs a specific function - the main body provides base support, the wings expand lateral contact area, and the separators prevent limb binding. This segmentation allows the spacer to achieve enhanced support capability through modular functional elements rather than a monolithic complex structure.
2Strength
If spacer contact surfaces are extended to increase surface area, then the support and stress distribution improve, but the manufacturing complexity and device complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer incorporates flexible wings made of elastomeric or polymeric material that can deform to conform to the bow limb surface. This flexibility allows the extended contact surfaces to adapt to the limb's geometry, maximizing contact area and stress distribution. The flexible nature of these extended surfaces enables them to maintain continuous contact during limb flexion without requiring complex adjustable mechanisms, thus improving strength while controlling manufacturing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The raised limb separators and flexible wings feature curved and rounded geometries that match the contour of the bow limb. This curvature design enhances the contact area by allowing the spacer to conform to the limb's surface, improving stress distribution. The use of curved surfaces rather than sharp angular extensions reduces stress concentrations in the spacer itself, making the enhanced geometric features more manufacturable and structurally sound.
3Area of stationary object
If the spacer includes extended contact surfaces and flexible wings, then the surface area contact with bow limbs increases, but the manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer design utilizes material parameter changes - specifically the elastomeric or polymeric properties of the flexible wings - to achieve conformal contact. These materials can be molded or extruded with general dimensional tolerances, and their flexibility allows them to adapt to the precise contact geometry during assembly. This approach achieves large contact surface area while reducing the stringency of manufacturing precision requirements compared to rigid extended surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible wings and raised separators are designed to be dynamically adaptable rather than statically precise. The flexible material allows the contact surfaces to move and conform during bow operation, compensating for manufacturing tolerances. This dynamic adaptation ensures consistent contact area and alignment during use without requiring extremely tight manufacturing precision, thus achieving large contact area with reasonable manufacturing tolerances.
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 increased surface area contact and flexibility of the spacer members provide improved support to bow limbs, reducing the risk of overstress and failure by distributing stress effectively and accommodating limb movement during use.
Implementation Method 1
The increased surface area contact and flexibility of the spacer members provide improved support to bow limbs, reducing the risk of overstress and failure by distributing stress effectively
Implementation Method 2
fulcrums or spacers can be positioned within the limb pockets to contact portions of the archery bow limbs and move or rock with the bow limbs as they are flexed during use of the archery bow
Data Source
AI summary
An archery bow comprises a riser portion with upper and lower ends, and at least one bow limb portion extending from the riser. The archery bow further includes at least one spacer member positioned between the riser portion and the bow limb portion, such that the limb portion contacts the spacer member. The spacer member has a longitudinal axis and a width axis, and includes at least one contact surface for contacting the limb portion with a bottom portion extending along the longitudinal axis underneath the contact surface. The contact surface extends beyond the bottom portion along the width axis to provide increased surface area contact with the bow limb portion.