Variable Face Thickness Golf Club Head Non-Linear Bending
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current golf club designs face challenges in achieving optimal performance characteristics such as spin, directionality, ball speed, and characteristic time (CT) while conforming to USGA regulations, which limits CT and results in reduced strike face deflection and ball speed.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a wood-type golf club head with a strike face featuring a variable face thickness (VFT) topography, including a central region with maximum thickness surrounded by non-linear bending regions. This configuration increases strike face deflection and ball speed while maintaining CT within USGA limits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If strike face deflection is reduced to meet USGA CT limits, then CT compliance is achieved, but ball speed and launch characteristics deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The strike face is designed with non-uniform thickness distribution, featuring a variable face thickness (VFT) topography where the central region has maximum thickness and peripheral regions have reduced thickness. This local variation in geometric properties allows different zones of the strike face to exhibit different deflection characteristics, enabling CT compliance while preserving ball speed generation capability in the central impact zone.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from a uniform two-dimensional strike face design to a three-dimensional variable thickness topology. By introducing the thickness dimension as a varying parameter across the strike face surface, the design achieves non-linear bending behavior that complies with CT limits while maintaining optimal launch characteristics through strategic thickness distribution.
2Reliability
If strike face deflection is reduced to meet USGA CT limits, then CT compliance is achieved, but launch characteristics and feel deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The central region of the strike face maintains maximum thickness to provide appropriate deflection and feel for typical ball impacts, while peripheral regions are thinned to control overall CT. This local differentiation ensures that the feel and playability characteristics are preserved in the critical central impact zone while meeting regulatory requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The variable face thickness design creates a dynamic response where the strike face exhibits non-linear bending behavior. The thickness distribution allows the face to deflect appropriately under impact loads while returning to its original position, providing a responsive feel that mimics traditional designs while maintaining CT compliance.
3Ease of manufacture
If uniform face thickness is used, then manufacturing is simplified, but performance optimization is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the face thickness parameter from a constant uniform value to a spatially varying function. The VFT topography defines specific thickness values at different locations across the strike face, with the central region having maximum thickness and peripheral regions having reduced thickness. This parameter variation enables optimized ball speed generation while maintaining manufacturability through defined geometric transitions.
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 VFT design enhances ball speed and strike face deflection without exceeding USGA-defined CT limits, thereby improving the performance and feel of the golf club head.
Implementation Method 1
The combination of the center region and the surrounding thin region produces greater strike face deflection and greater ball speeds, for a given CT of the strike face
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of golf club heads comprising a club face with a variable thickness profile to increase face deflection and ball speed for a given CT are described herein. The variable thickness profile comprises a central region, the central transition, the hinge, the inner transition, and the hinge outer peak creating a variable face thickness with a topography that evokes the shape of a speaker woofer to produce non-linear bending, thereby producing greater strike face deflection and resulting ball speed for a given CT value. The variable face thickness profiles can further comprise a non-linear bending region comprising a first peak, a valley, and a second peak to non-linearly bend at other locations on the strike face thereby, producing greater strike face deflection and resulting ball speed for a given CT value.