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Advanced Materials to the Fore: Materials Requirements for Golf Clubheads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

S.K. Liu
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Extract

The special properties of advanced materials have prompted manufacturers to consider their use in sports equipment—particularly in golf clubs. The International Golf Association permits golfers to use clubheads with different facing materials inserted into the head body. As a result, clubheads made from stainless steel, aluminum alloys, and zinc alloys now face competition from those made of advanced materials and from those with various advanced materials inserted into the head body as the striking face. Golf clubheads have specific materials properties requirements, but these requirements are less harsh than those required for the aerospace and transportation industries. So, advanced materials can be used in manufacturing golf clubheads without extensive property certification. Maybe this is one reason so many different kinds of clubheads made from different materials have appeared on the market recently, although some of the new varieties are falsely advertised and cannot withstand the demands placed on them during service. This article offers an analysis from a metallurgist's point of view of the main characteristics of clubheads made from advanced materials.

Since neither the golf clubhead nor the ball are rigid bodies, elastic deformation of the clubhead cannot be avoided when the club strikes the ball. Therefore, the analyses of stress and strain produced in a club-head during striking are complex. Let us analyze the process of a clubhead striking a ball. For simplicity, the impact response of a clubhead can be described as that of a flexible target. According to Greszczuk, an approximate solution for the impact response of a flexible plate-type target can be obtained by considering the deformations shown in Figure 1.

Type
Research Report
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 18 , Issue 11 , November 1993 , pp. 93 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

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References

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