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Altair > Case Studies > Implementing CAE into the Design Process for Composite Tennis Racquets at Wilson Sporting Goods

Implementing CAE into the Design Process for Composite Tennis Racquets at Wilson Sporting Goods

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud

Applicable Industries

Aerospace
Apparel

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Digital Twin
Virtual Reality

Services

Testing & Certification

The Challenge

Wilson Sporting Goods Co., a leading manufacturer of high-performance sports equipment, was looking to reduce design cycle time and enhance product value in the development of their tennis racquet designs. The company wanted to take advantage of simulation, automation, and optimization technologies to achieve this goal. Wilson Labs, the innovation hub at Wilson, was particularly interested in exploring developments in Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for laminated composites that could be applied to their composite tennis racquet lines. They aimed to accomplish something unique or organic looking in terms of geometry. Until this point, FEA for composites had been almost non-existent in the racquet industry. Recognizing its potential as a better tool for lay-up design and optimization for weight, strength, stiffness, and simplicity, Wilson decided to take a leading role in employing this technology in the industry.

About The Customer

Wilson Sporting Goods Co. is a world-leading manufacturer of high-performance sports equipment, apparel, and accessories. For over a century, they have been creating, designing, and producing sports equipment for athletes who play Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Soccer, Volleyball, Softball, and more. Wilson has continually evolved how sports are played and enjoyed by millions. In the world of sports, the competition is fierce, and the relationship between an athlete and their equipment is a powerful one. With that dynamic association in mind, Wilson Labs, the innovation hub at Wilson, invents, designs, and engineers game-changing products, employing state-of-the-art sports technologies and expertise. In its Racquet Sports business, Wilson Lab’s innovation initiatives include material enhancements, mechanical enhancements, and changes to physical parameters of the racquet to fit evolving trends of the player’s game.

The Solution

Wilson Labs Design Engineer Bob Kapheim became familiar with Altair's HyperWorks® software and Altair ProductDesign engineering services. Altair ProductDesign team performed software simulation and test correlation for Wilson without them having to first invest in the software. Altair, having extensive experience with composites simulation methods within industries such as aerospace, was able to adapt the technology to the composites simulation of tennis racquets. The initial part of the work was done with a finite element model build based on the provided geometry representing the Outer Mold Line (OML) of the racquet that was undrilled, ungripped and without a handle. Modeling of the laminate was kept at a simplified level. For each ply, the lay-up document was reviewed to understand the ply location, and then surfaces were trimmed and organized. Ply thicknesses were assigned, as were material properties. Loads and boundary conditions were also applied. Several analyses were performed using Altair’s structural analysis and optimization software OptiStruct® and results were validated to correlate with physical test data.

Operational Impact

Altair’s engineers successfully modeled today’s tennis racquet in a virtual environment. Testing and analyses demonstrated the close correlation between a virtual model’s behaviors and real-life behaviors. The project inspired a high degree of confidence that HyperWorks brings the accuracy required to model the tennis racquets in a virtual space, and that virtual simulation as a resource is far more efficient than manual techniques. For all the performance metrics expected by the Wilson Labs racquet team (mass, center of mass, dynamic stiffness, static stiffness) the results showed an error percentage of less than 4%. The mass showed an error within 3%, center of mass in 2%, frequency being the dynamic stiffness was in 1% error, and the static stiffness was in 4% error, demonstrating results that were far better than expected up front.

Quantitative Benefit