The applied research of fiber reinforced composites materials in sports

equipments

Guang Hui Suna, Juan Juan Wang,b

Zheng zhou Insititute of Science and Technology, China

asunguangh2011@163.com,

btyxbcg@163.com

Keywords: Fiber reinforced composites materials; sports equipments

Abstract. The fiber reinforced composites materials possess some excellent characteristics, including

light in weight, high strength, high elastic modulus, easy molding and good corrosion resistance and

so on. Therefore, fiber reinforced composites materials has extensive application in

production-manufacturing of sports equipments, which is valuable to improve player performance.

This study elaborated the application advantages of fiber reinforced composites materials in sports

equipments, and selection principles, product variety, application example in order to provide a

reference for sports equipment manufacturing.

Introduction

As the people's living standard continues to improve, more and more people entered all kinds of

stadiums after their tiring and busy work. The development of modern athletic sports also requires

expertise in scientific training at the same time, also attaches great importance to the improvement

and development of sports equipment, which makes sports equipment market achieve unprecedented

prosperity. It is widely used in sports equipment, in which it has showed its unique charm. Industry

analysts believe that, with the increasingly demanding requirements of sports equipment, sports

equipment with fiber-reinforced composites as the main raw materials will be the mainstream of

development of sports goods industry in the 21st century.

Advantages of Fiber reinforced Composite Materials Applied to Sports equipments

Light Textile. Most of the sports equipments is making its motion by the human power, and therefore

requires the good equipments as light as possible, such as tennis rackets, Even

some sports equipments driving by mechanical force or other incentives to make the movement, in

other circumstances, under the same conditions, light textile is also required as well, such as racing,

sailing boat, motorboat, etc. In this regard, fiber reinforced composites enjoy incomparable

advantages. Such as golf clubs made of carbon fiber reinforced materials, which use carbon fiber

cloth belt building law, lighter than metal bars 30%~50%, while its mechanical properties are

improved a lot compared with metal rod.

Excellent Mechanical Performance. Mechanical properties such as strength, toughness, flexibility

is an important aspect to consider in the course of the use of sport equipments, reinforced composite

materials with outstanding strength, modulus, and the elastic modulus, more suited for use as sport

equipments. Composite damper with a good performance is one of the causes of it as a raw material of

sport equipments.

Good Processing Properties with Strong Potential to be designed. Sport equipments made of

traditional materials, due to its performance limits of the material itself, poor design, so once it is

damaged, it is difficult to repair, and requires a huge maintenance cost. Design and development of

composite molding technology makes freedom of design greatly enhanced, various products can

always find the appropriate molding methods. Hence, it could be designed depending on the players

themselves separately, which is difficult to be achieved through the wood and metal material.

Advanced Materials Research Vol. 485 (2012) pp 506-509Online available since 2012/Feb/27 at www.scientific.net© (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerlanddoi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.485.506

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Other Aspects. In the course of development of sports equipments, hygienic and price/performance

are questions that must be taken into account. Hygienic performance is to require the materials that do

not disseminate hazardous, toxic or unpleasant smell in the course of its use, which is an important

indicator to improve athletes' comfort. Price/performance is one of the principles that should be paid

close attention to by the developers, good quality but expensive products can only be used in high

level sports competitions, However it is beyond the purchasing power of ordinary consumers.

Composite materials tend to enjoy the advantage of having good hygienic quality. Thermoplastic

composite materials can be recycled, while the production of composite materials tends to enjoy low

prices in terms of its raw materials with low processing costs which benefit the popularization and

promotion of products.

Reinforcing Fiber Material and Fabric Structures

Glass-fiber-reinforced composites is a development of earlier, a wider application of composite, its

tensile, flexural, impact strength and rigidity are larger. With a high strength and modulus, and poor

wetting, adhesion of resin, prior to the preparation of composite materials, fiber surface should be

dealt with the activation process. Carbon fiber-reinforced composite is a composite of good property

of strength, stiffness, heat resistance. A high-strength and high modulus fiber can be used to enhance

resin and metal. Boron fiber reinforced epoxy resin composite is the composite of the best

performance in reinforced plastic with high strength and high modulus fiber. With high tensile

strength, high modulus, good heat resistance, it can resist the high temperature of 12500C.With good

compatibility, it can get together with metal, plastic, and ceramics a in a form of short-fiber, yarn,

fabric, cloth, as well as tapestry. Carborundum fiber reinforced resin matrix composites are superior

to carbon fiber composites in terms of its resistance to pressure, impact. The biggest characteristics

are of low density, high strength, high modulus, resistance to high temperature, with good bonding

resin; it can be made of filament, rove and fabric. It enhanced tensile strength of composite is superior

to that of the glass fiber and carbon fiber, modulus of elasticity is two times that of the

glass-fiber-reinforced materials, but lower than that of the carbon fiber-reinforced materials. With the

advantages such as high strength, good chemical stability, biological adaptation as well as low

density , but used in the composites limited by poor adhesion, it must undergo plasma ablation,

induced by radiation grafting and other methods of surface modification. Hybrid fiber reinforcement

refers to two kinds of short-fiber hybrid or two unidirectional filament reinforcements. Core-spun

composite yarns can be glass fiber/polyester fiber, carbon fiber/polyether, carbon fiber/liquid

crystalline polymers so on and so forth. Apart from characteristics of hybrid-fiber-reinforced

composites featuring a single fiber, there are some special performances to meet different needs of

application. Fiber-reinforced composites with the exception of continuous fiber, long staple or tow, a

molding methods can also be used by fabric made of rope, ribbon, tapestry, and a variety of fabric

structures, namely perform component, it has no shear effects of entanglement between the fibers, and

other defects. These pre-forming pieces can produce different structures and different shapes of

articles such as machine fabric, knitted fabric, woven property, non-weaving made fabric, multilayer

fabric, and three dimensional fabric structures according to the need of composite materials. Using

this form of textile materials of construction for enhanced faces and substrate, without secondary

processing, shaping can produce special-shaped structure as I-beams and L-beams, cross beams,

taper, as well as spiral.

Types of Fiber Composite Materials Sports Equipments

In China, a lot of work has also been made in the manufacture of FRP sports equipment. As early as

the 60’s, Shanghai FRP Research Institute had produced FRP struts by using high modulus glass fiber.

In the 80’s, Harbin FRP Institute had successfully manufactured the CFRP badminton rackets and

transferred to related factories to carry out production. Tongji University in Shanghai made

competition-using diving flippers by using high-strength and high modulus glass fiber cloth invented

Advanced Materials Research Vol. 485 507

by Nanjing Research and Design Institute. Xiamen yachts plants made international

competition-using sailboards with high-strength glass fiber cloth. Fuchun River Water Sports

Equipment Factory and Fuchun River Sports Equipment Factory in Zhejiang developed series of

AcM (advanced composites) rowings, which are not only available to domestic player, but are also

exported to oversee countries for athletes to participate in international competitions. Wuhan

University of Technology developed FRP kayaks, rowings, artistic gymnastic bars, artistic gymnastic

circles, and volleyball ruler’s ae well as basketball boards. In recent years, some developed countries

make the use of their advantages in the field of materials and engineering as well as technology,

enabling composite applications in the field of sports goods to continue its expansion and has made

remarkable achievements. In the present day, countries have developed GF, CF, ceramic fiber or

aramid fiber reinforced composite for the nation's tennis racket; Adopting laminated composite to

make ski bar; Paddle, shroud line, golf, hockey stick, also have a similar situation, these sporting

instruments are not only light, and racing sails also use composite structure: Kevlar fabric, or to be

directed on ultra high molecular weight polyethylene fiber reinforced laminated to polyester film,

much light as the sail , the level of its motion intensity is high, there is no problem in motion.

During skiing, snowboard is related to the safety of the players and their scores, but structure and

materials of the snowboard is much more complex. For many years, people are paying close attention

to the issues as lightweighting of snowboard, the perfection of shock absorption, improvement of

fatigue life and slew characteristic.Since the 80 's, with the use of composites like glass fiber and

carbon fiber , people have produced the snowboards with high quality. Material quality of snowboards

is including wood, metal and fiber composite(usually fiberglass). Wood is light and cheap, but it is

easily affected with damp and become deformed. Metal snowboards made of aluminium alloy cost

more. It is required higher levels of snow, is of poor suitability. Snowboards made of fiber composites

is suitable for any type of snow and is easy to maintain. On current market, the snowboards with good

performance are generally made of sandwich composites. This kind of snowboard is made from wood,

PU or PVC, which results in snowboard' flexibility. Carbon fiber (CV) is located above the core, it

will enhance the flexion degrees of snowboards; glass fiber (GF) is placed over the kernel which plays

a role in connecting. CV can connect panel and nuclear to increase the toughness of the snowboards as

well as to make snowboards more intensity. Figure 1 is a map of the structure of snowboards. In 1972,

American company--Shakespear produced golf clubs by filament winding. In the same year,

G·Brewer from America made golf clubs by using CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced composite), so

black bars (carbon fiber golf clubs) replaced the traditional golf clubs. Sticks made of carbon fiber

composite materials is one time heavier than traditional kaki, which is to the benefit of improving the

initial velocity of the ball; at the same time, it is free to design, spots is broad; it can also make hollow

sticks, and improve the flight distance and stability of flight direction. Since then, in order to meet the

needs of flight distance and directional stability, light weight, dimensions and loads have been

improved. In present days, upscale golf clubs are made by using carbon fiber composites, whose

density is small, strength is high, elastic is high, impulse is strong, which makes golf clubs reuse

multiple times, and also make athletes make full use of the power and technology of swinging the golf

clubs. . Currently, the total output of United States, Japan, Korea and Taiwan is up to 40 million one

year. Bikes have not just been seen as a kind of transportation, but have body building, travel, contests

and many other functions. For this reason, there is an urgent need for new materials there to make the

weight of bikes fall further and have a better feeling of comfort. In the mid 80's, Italy, France, England

and the United States had one after another successfully developed carbon fiber bikes by bonding

carbon fiber tube and connectors of aluminum alloy to make the frame of bikes. Weight of this kind of

frames is lighter than those made of chromium-molybdenum steel, while the strength and stiffness is

higher than those made of chromium-molybdenum steel. Therefore, once developed, it was used as

dedicated cars for competition. The frame of the "mount" of Germany famous racer, who has won the

champion of men's cycling road race is made of carbon fiber reinforced composite. Its mass is only 7.

5 kilograms. Table 4 lists the main application and materials in bikes. The trend of current

development of bikes which are used composites is roughly divided into two directions: first, using

508 Advanced Research on Material Engineering and its Application

thermosetting resin composites (FRP) to reduce the weight of bikes, and increase the added value,

using FRP to replace metal materials to manufacture high-end bikes and chassis, wheels and other

parts of racing bikes. Second, using thermoplastic composite materials to make mini-bikes, light

bikes and parts of children's bikes. At present, it is always to use resin transfer molding (RTM) to do

mass production of bikes.

Conclusion

Fiber-reinforced composite materials in the field of sports instruments have formed in a

comparatively large market. In 1994 world sports instrument consumes about 24 000 tons of

composites, among which skid, retaining snow board occupies 6 000 tons (one-fourth), the Golf Club

consumes 9,500 tons. Bicycle frames and spokes develop in a fast and rapid way. In the year 1997,

composite material consumption reaches 50 000t among world sports instrument, which occupies

25% of the total. In the year 2000, CF consumption of World Golf Club reaches up to 2 GB,

surpassing CF consumption in the aerospace industry. According to the analysis of industry insiders,

as the requirement posed by the sport on sports instrument becomes more and more demanding,

fiber-reinforced composite application is the mainstream of development of sports goods industry in

the 2l century. I'm deeply convinced that in the future, especially in the 2008 Olympic Games in

particular, fiber-reinforced composite materials in various sporting goods will be more widely

displayed.

References

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Advanced Materials Research Vol. 485 509

Advanced Research on Material Engineering and its Application 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.485 The Applied Research of Fiber Reinforced Composites Materials in Sports Equipments 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.485.506

DOI References

[1] E Car, F Zalamea, S Oller, et al. Numerical simulation of fiber reinforced composite materials-two

procedures. International Journal of Solids and Structures, Volume 39, Issue 7, 2002, Pages 1967-(1986).

doi:10.1016/S0020-7683(01)00240-2 [2] A.L. Kalamkarov, A.G. Kolpakov. Design problems for the fiber-reinforced composite materials.

Composites Part B: Engineering, Volume 27, Issue 5, 1996, Pages 485-492.

doi:10.1016/1359-8368(96)00029-7 [3] A. K Bledzki, J Gassan. Composites reinforced with cellulose based fibres. Progress in Polymer Science,

Volume 24, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 221-274.

doi:10.1016/S0079-6700(98)00018-5 [4] Guido Camata, Ross Corotis, Enrico Spacone. Simplified stochastic modeling and simulation of

unidirectional fiber reinforced composites. Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics, Volume 19, Issues 1–2,

January 2004, Pages 33-40.

doi:10.1016/j.probengmech.2003.11.002