TECHNOLOGY >>>>
Engineering the Next Generation: Performance & Safety
Leading-edge Composite Sport Shaft Technology
Hammer is the only RTM/Pultrusion composite stick manufacturer in the United States. The Company progressively and actively invests in, and develops, new manufacturing processes. The Company’s commitment to advanced R&D and breakthrough RTM processes has yielded proprietary nanocomposite layering technology and manufacturing processes, which together, enable Hammer to produce complex composite configurations, unachievable through any other method, yielding the strength and durability of advanced alloys with the natural feel and control you can only get from composites.
It has taken over four years and 4,500 tests to develop Hammer’s leading-edge performance. Successfully achieving what the industry leaders repeatedly attempted and failed (composite performance with the durability and strength of exotic alloys – zirconium, scandium, titanium, etc.), widely regarded as unachievable. The key was in developing a proprietary temperature-cured toughened polymer nanocomposite matrix material, yielding 200% stronger and 300% more durable than contemporary advanced composite engineering methods.
Over the past four years the Company has assembled a world-class technology development team celebrating collaborative partner relationships with industry leaders from the United States, Germany, Austria, Japan, and New Zealand. To protect the Company’s technology advancements, Hammer is aggressively adding to its intellectual property (IP) portfolio.
Engineering the Next Generation: Performance & Safety
Relative Performance
(Derived from Test Data)
The Performance Paradigm is a natural phenomenon where power and control are inversely related. As power goes up, control goes down. This conflict is inherent in the stiffness of alloy and composite tube shafts. Without controlled flex, these light, stiff, shafts are bio-mechanically inefficient. They force the player to absorb shock and compensate for unnatural rigidity. Look at other sports, tennis, golf and skiing, that have all broken the performance paradigm and how they did it, all through highly engineered controlled flex, a product of complex product design.
Accomplishing controlled flex however, is not so simple; it took Hammer over two years of intense development to achieve, and two more years to engineer in manufacturability. It requires a complex five-day manufacturing process with over 65 tightly controlled steps.
As the Hammer development team worked its way through the complex design process, the material combinations began to self select. Like Edison trying over 1,000 materials before success with the light bulb, the PowerShaft design and material combinations slowly and organically emerged. The key is that it’s not one material or component, it’s a system of components working together dynamically to produce an almost imperceptible smoothness.
The flex has almost magical properties. It allows the shaft to isolate and conserve energy, which means less bio-mechanic energy loss (into the athlete’s body). The configuration of the laminated composite system enables the shaft to flex naturally with the athletes swing putting less pressure on the athletes body joints, just like golf, tennis, and skiing. Natural fluid body motion is not only critical to athletic performance, but also reduces the risk of long term shock and vibration health issues. According to related medical science, light, stiff shafts produce unwanted stress on muscle joints through balance-pressure and translational-shock. Over the past 30 years, sports medicine has discovered that long term exposure to light, rigid, sports equipment is the cause of shock and vibration transmission to the athlete’s wrists, elbows and shoulders, which is the culprit in the long-term muscle joint fatigue condition known as tennis elbow. This is precisely why the Hammer engineers put so much energy into sweet-spot balance, shock and vibration damping. It gives the stick a natural quiet feel.
Energy Transfer Analysis
These graphs show the relative performance of lacrosse shafts of different materials and configuration using a standardized shock and vibration test with Fast Fourier Transform analysis of stick-on-stick impact.
When struck with the same energy, the Hammer PowerShaft shaft damps the shock at twice the rate of the alloy and composite tube shafts. Note the sustained vibration, sustained amplitude and characteristic harmonics inherent in the tube designs.
Not only does the Hammer PowerShaft has all the safety and performance benefits of controlled flex, the impact vibration testing showed the Hammer PowerShaft had the shortest time in dissipating the vibrational frequency content of the impact. Hollow alloy tubes retain vibrational energy 51% longer than the PowerShaft, and hollow composite tubes retain vibrational energy 7.1% longer than the PowerShaft. The PowerShaft shafts transmit less shock than other shaft technologies to the hands of the player in a stick on stick impact.
In standardized Bend-Break tests, the Hammer shafts had twice the flexibility of the hollow alloy and composite tube shafts. This highly engineered flexibility is the key to breaking the performance paradigm and improving player safety. In the bend-break test, both the alloy and composite tube shafts resisted bending and had more stored energy to release at failure. When the alloy shafts were bent to failure, they presented sharp points at each side of the fold edges and some showed tearing with jagged edges. In the case of the hollow composite tube shafts, when bent to failure they presented jagged edges capable of player laceration. The PowerShaft shafts flexed 51% further than the composite tube shafts before breaking. This is a significant safety advantage. Also, due to the ballistic aramid fiber construction melded in aerospace epoxy, the Hammer shafts produce no sharp edges when bent to the point of failure.
