Design of Sports Equipment Made from Anisotropic Multilayer Composites with Stiffness Related Coupling Effect.

Sporting goods such as snowboards have to resist enormous loads while using them. Especially freestyle snowboards are extremely stressed during the landing of high jumps or while sliding sideways on a rail. During such a board slide the steel edge of a snowboard tends to cut into the handrail and the motion of the athlete can be interrupted abruptly. This fact leads to crashes and can cause severe injuries. Catching the edge is nearly eliminated by using an all-new anisotropic layer design (ALD)-snowboard which has been developed, simulated and tested by the Professorship of Lightweight Structures and Polymer Technology (SLK) in cooperation with the Professorship of Sports Equipment and Sports Technology (SGT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]