Sporting Goods Case Studies

The Challenge

•High end bicycles keep reducing weight to ensure consumer loyalty

•End-use environment requires a high degree of damage tolerance

•Boron is expensive and bicycle market is very competitive

The Approach

•Design bicycle using Gen-1 Hy-Bor®

•Use a combination of carbon fiber and Boron to reduce material cost

•Characterize tubes in frame design under various impact energy levels

•Determine compression after impact properties and assess damage tolerance

•Test tubes in compression with and without damage

The Result

•20% weight saving for a Calfee bicycle 54-inch frame using Hy-Bor®

•Damage tolerance was equivalent for a tube with 1 ply of Hy-Bor® that was 1/3 of the thickness of an all carbon fiber tube

•Failure mode of boron tubes due to very high energy impact damage was splitting in the axial direction and not catastrophic damage

The Challenge

•Reverse engineer the composite characteristics that lead to their best selling rod of all time

•Improve damage tolerance since product is provided with a life time warranty

•Provide best in class accuracy of cast

•Reduce mass rod to reduce user fatigue

The Approach

•Engaged retired Aerospace Composite Engineer with a love of fly fishing

•Characterize rod through testing under various load cases

•Select material and develop micromechanicals model to create new design with same stiffnesses

•Build prototypes and develop process

•Test prototypes

The Result

•Lightest weight fly rod ever taken to market

•Stiffness match to legacy product with off-axis plies to provide torsional stability

•Uses Gen2 Hy-Bor® with out of autoclave state of the art toughened epoxy, TC-380

•Uses Toray’s T1100G fiber with unmatched tensile modulus and strength using new nanotechnology process controls methods

•Less than $20 per rod of Gen-2 Hy-Bor® in product