Multi-Section Sports Racquet Frame Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current sports racquet designs lack sufficient flexibility in modifying playing characteristics, such as weight, balance, and stiffness, despite advancements in materials and geometric shapes, limiting the ability to optimize racquet performance.
Innovation Solution
The racquet frame is constructed from multiple sections, including separate frame sections for the head, tip, and side areas, with varying materials and constructions, using inflation molding techniques to create enlarged string port holes that reduce weight and simplify stringing, allowing for greater design flexibility and improved torsional stiffness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the racquet frame is constructed from multiple sections with varying materials and constructions, then design flexibility and customization of playing characteristics is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The racquet frame is divided into multiple sections (head section, shaft section, handle section) that can be manufactured separately and assembled together. Each section can have different materials, constructions, and properties optimized for its specific function, enabling greater design flexibility while managing complexity through modular assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
Different sections of the racquet frame are constructed with varying materials and properties tailored to their specific functional requirements. For example, the head section may use one material composition for maximum strength, while the shaft uses another for flexibility, allowing localized optimization without requiring the entire frame to be complex.
2Weight of moving object
If enlarged string port holes are used instead of conventional small string holes, then weight is reduced and stringing ease is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The enlarged string port holes are formed during the molding process itself rather than requiring post-manufacturing drilling. The mold includes cavities that directly form the enlarged holes with precise geometry, eliminating the need for separate drilling operations and ensuring consistent precision while reducing weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The conventional mechanical drilling process is replaced with a molding process that forms the holes through the mold cavity. This substitution allows for larger hole sizes to be formed with high precision without the tooling constraints of drilling, reducing weight while maintaining manufacturing precision.
3Strength
If the frame uses a double tube construction with bonded walls, then torsional stiffness is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Two separate tube structures are merged into a single integrated double-tube construction. The tubes are positioned adjacent to each other and bonded together at multiple points, creating a unified structure that provides enhanced torsional stiffness while distributing the complexity of the construction across standardized tube components.
Solution Approach 2:
The double tube construction uses composite materials that are bonded together to create a structure with superior torsional stiffness. The bonding of the tube walls creates a composite structure that combines the strengths of individual tubes while providing rotational rigidity, managing the complexity through material science rather than structural complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A sports racquet frame is formed from a plurality of frame sections, some sections formed of a single tubular member and other sections formed of double tubular members. The double tube sections preferably contain string port holes. Also, different frame sections can be made of different materials, e.g., carbon fiber-reinforced composites and aluminum.