Multilayer Golf Ball Hardness Thickness Optimization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Golf balls struggle to balance flight performance and feel at impact, particularly for beginners who often mishit during putting due to a lack of sense of distance control, as existing multilayer golf balls either prioritize resilience for long flight distances at the expense of feel or vice versa.
Innovation Solution
A golf ball design utilizing TH values calculated from the hardness and thickness of multiple layers, specifically adjusting the TH values of the core, inner cover, main cover, and outer cover to achieve both desired flight performance and feel, with formulas defining optimal ranges for these values to enhance responsiveness and distance control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If a golf ball is designed with high resilience performance to achieve long flight distance, then the flight performance is improved, but the feel at impact becomes hard
Solution Approach 1:
The golf ball is divided into multiple layers (core, inner cover, main cover, outer cover) with different hardness and thickness characteristics. Each layer is optimized independently to contribute differently to flight performance and feel, allowing the ball to achieve long distance while maintaining soft feel through the cumulative effect of layered structures.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the golf ball are assigned different properties: the core and inner cover are designed with specific hardness and thickness to optimize resilience for flight distance, while the outer cover is designed with softer properties to provide comfortable feel at impact. This local differentiation of properties resolves the contradiction between distance and feel.
2Ease of operation
If a golf ball has soft feel at impact to provide comfortable response, then the feel is improved, but the response felt in hands upon putting becomes excessively small making it difficult to grasp sense of distance
Solution Approach 1:
The invention optimizes specific parameters (hardness, thickness) of each layer to achieve a balance where the outer cover provides soft feel for comfort, while the inner layers maintain sufficient resilience to generate adequate response feedback. The TH value calculations and specific formula constraints ensure that the ball delivers both soft feel and sufficient distance information to the player's hands.
3Ease of operation
If the inner cover has low hardness to provide soft feel, then the feel is improved, but the flight performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The golf ball structure segments the functions of different layers: the inner cover is optimized for feel with lower hardness, while the core and main cover are optimized for flight performance with higher resilience. This functional segmentation allows each layer to excel at its primary role without compromising the other.
Solution Approach 2:
The golf ball uses composite construction with multiple materials of different hardness and elasticity properties. The combination of softer inner cover material with harder core and main cover materials creates a composite structure that delivers both soft feel from the inner cover and excellent flight performance from the harder outer layers.
Data Source
AI summary
A golf ball 2 includes a core 4, an inner cover 6, a main cover 8, and an outer cover 10. S=Hs×Rc×0.05, M=Hm×Tm, I=Hi×Ti, O=Ho×To, and Q=(I+O)/2 that are calculated from a radius Rc of the core 4, a Shore C hardness Hs at a surface of the core 4, a thickness Tm of the main cover 8, a Shore C hardness Hm of the main cover 8, a thickness Ti of the inner cover 6, a Shore C hardness Hi of the inner cover 6, a thickness To of the outer cover 10 and a Shore C hardness Ho of the outer cover 10, satisfy 15≤M−S≤100, 0.25<Q/M≤0.5, and 30<I−O.