Patent Application
20130210564
The present invention relates to artificial feather for badminton shuttlecocks. Specifically, the present invention relates to an improvement technology for mainly reducing the weight and increasing the durability of the vane portion of artificial feather. Further, the present invention relates to shuttlecocks using artificial feather.
As badminton shuttlecocks, there are those using waterfowl feather (natural feather) (natural feather shuttlecocks) and those using artificial feather (artificial feather shuttlecocks) artificially manufactured using nylon resin and the like, for the feathers.
As is well known, natural feather shuttlecocks have a structure using approximately 16 natural feathers of geese, ducks or the like, and the ends of the stems of the feathers are embedded into the hemispherical platform (base portion) made of cork covered with skin. And the feather used for natural feather shuttlecocks have a feature of the specific gravity being small and being extremely light. For example, the specific gravity of the stem portion is approximately 0.4 and the vane portion is approximately 0.15. Additionally, a feather has high rigidity and thereby a unique flying performance and comfortable impression when hitting natural feather shuttlecocks can be perceived.
However, the feather used as the material for natural feather shuttlecocks are collected from the aforementioned waterfowls and moreover, feathers of specific portions of the waterfowl are suitable for shuttlecocks which does not mean that feathers from any portion of the waterfowl can be used and thus the amount of feather for a shuttlecock that can be collected from one waterfowl is a miniscule number. In other words, there is a limit to the amount of feather manufactured for use in natural feather shuttlecocks. Further, there has been a situation of a large amount of geese used for food that had been the main source for feather, being disposed due to bird flu epidemic in the recent years. Therefore, material procurement is predicted to become more difficult and the price of natural feather shuttlecocks to rise further in the future.
Meanwhile, shuttlecocks with resin feather integrally formed in an annular ring is well known as artificial feather shuttlecocks, however, the feathers of these artificial feather shuttlecocks do not move independently as with natural feather shuttlecocks so that flight performance similar to natural feather shuttlecocks is difficult to be achieved. For such reason, artificial feather shuttlecocks imitating feather has been proposed as described in the following PTL 1 and 2. Here, when correspondence between portions of natural feather and portions of artificial feather based on ornithology is made, the portions corresponding to the vane and the rachis of natural feather will be called vane portion and the rachis portion, respectively, the portions corresponding to those called the basal and the calamus that protrude from the vane as apart of the rachis will be called the calamus portion to avoid confusion with feather. With such preconditions, the artificial feather described in this PTL 1 has the vane portion being a two-layer structure with a foam body layer and a stem fixing layer with the same planar forms adhered together, and has the rachis portion fixed between the layers so that the calamus portion protrudes from the vane portion. Further, the artificial feather described in PTL 2 has a structure where a protruding portion is formed to one end of the vane portion made of nonwoven fabric to protrude in the extending direction of the rachis portion, and has the protruding portion embedded in the rachis portion.
Artificial feather for shuttlecocks require to be equipped with various performances such as hitting impression and flying performance similar to those of natural feather. Particularly, the vane portion constitutes almost the whole area of a single artificial feather so that making the characteristics of the vane portion closely resemble those of natural feather is the most important subject.
To be specific, vanes of natural feather used for natural feather shuttlecocks are a collective of relatively stiff feather (barbs) each growing from the rachis. And because of this structure, natural feather has characteristics of such as appropriate rigidity (shape retainability) that does not easily deform even when flying through the air at high speed although being thin and light.
Therefore, it is required to make studies from various perspectives on a wide variety of conditions including materials, structure and the like for allowing the vane portion of artificial feather to develop the aforementioned characteristics. However, it is extremely difficult to satisfy all of these conditions. For example, the artificial feather described in above described PTL 1 uses foamed polyethylene for its foam body layer and this foam body layer substantially considered as the vane portion, has layered thereon the stem fixing layer on the entire face of the vane portion. It is inevitable that the foam body is made thick since the rigidity will decrease when the vane portion is of a thin film for reducing weight. Being the case, weight reduction will be difficult if the whole area of the vane portion is made of a foam body. Further, foamed polyethylene has bad adherence property so that the foam body layer and the stem fixing layer are adhered to the wide area forming the vane portion with double-faced adhesive tape for fixing the foam body layer and the stem fixing layer in a layered state. Therefore, weight reduction comparable to natural feather will be further difficult. It is a matter of course that the shuttlecock would lose its balance reducing the directivity and hairpin performance if the weight of the vane portion should increase.
The artificial feather described in PTL 2 uses nonwoven fabric to the vane portion thus weight reduction of the vane portion can be expected. However, nonwoven fabric lacks rigidity so that it is difficult to return to its initial shape when hit strongly. Also, nonwoven fabric lacks durability. Specifically, there is a probability of the fibers coming apart by being hit and the fibers scattering. If the fibers come apart, it would be easier for the vane portion to break. As a matter of course, the deterioration in appearance as a product is also a problem.
The present invention has been made in view of the aforementioned various problems that conventional artificial feather for shuttlecocks have and an object there of is to provide artificial feather for shuttlecocks being lightweight and having excellent shape retainability, durability and productivity as well, and shuttlecocks using the artificial feather.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of artificial feather for shuttlecocks and a principal aspect of the invention is, a plurality of artificial feathers for a shuttlecock, when a hemispherical base portion of the shuttlecock is set on a lower side, the artificial feathers being embedded in an annular ring form on a peripheral border of a circular top end face of the base portion, the artificial feathers for a shuttlecock each including a vane portion in a thin film form, corresponding to a vane, the vane portion being provided with a reinforcement coating made of applied resin, and a rachis portion in a bar form extending integrally and continuously from an upper tip end to a lower distal end, corresponding to a rachis, to imitate a natural feather, the rachis portion being fixed to the vane portion at a vane support portion, having the vane support portion set as an area that is fixed to the vane portion along the tip end to a bottom end of the vane portion, and having a calamus portion set as an area that protrudes to a lower side of the vane portion and spans from a bottom end of the vane support portion to the distal end, to correspond to a calamus of the natural feather.
Artificial feathers for shuttlecocks according to the present invention are lightweight and have excellent shape retainability, and the shuttlecocks using the artificial feathers can be expected to exhibit flying performance and hitting impression similar to natural feather shuttlecocks. Further, provision of shuttlecocks with excellent productivity and of inexpensive price is possible without relying on the amount of production of natural material. Further, the other effects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description.
The annularly arranged artificial feathers 10 are embedded so that parts of the adjacent artificial feather 10 overlap in a regular pattern. In the examples shown in the figures, of the artificial feather 10, when the face that faces the outer side of the aforementioned skirt portion 4 is set as the front side and the face that faces the inner side is set as the back side, and focusing on one artificial feather 10 seen with the base portion 2 positioned on the lower side, the pertinent artificial feather 10 has its left edge of the front face underlapping the back face side of the artificial feather 10 adjacent on the left. It is a matter of course that the front-back relation of adjacent artificial feather 10 is not limited to the example shown and the right edge of the front face can be underlapping the back face side of the artificial feather 10 adjacent on the right.
When the shuttlecock is for just for leisure activities the artificial feathers configuring the shuttlecock have importance attached to productivity and durability. In other words, it would be enough if they were inexpensive and durable. However, those used in workout by athletes, and when they have an ultimate goal to be used as an alternative to official shuttlecocks used in a competition game, there is a need for the vane portion constituting almost the whole area of the artificial feather, in particular, to closely resemble the characteristics, such as, shape retainability and impact-resistance of natural feather above achieving lightweight as much as possible.
For example, there is a hitting method being a so-called “hairpin shot” in badminton which is unique to natural feather shuttlecocks. This hitting method allows the shuttlecock to fly along a unique arc by “lifting” and hitting the shuttlecock so that the shuttlecock is like floating while a strong rotation is applied thereto. An artificial feather having characteristics closely resembling those of natural feather is required to re-create the aforementioned arc path with an artificial feather shuttlecock. It is a matter of course that easy manufacturing needs to be allowed in view of increase in cost of natural feather.
And based on the idea that the material and the structure of the vane portion constituting a large area of the artificial feather would largely influence the performance of the shuttlecocks, the inventors concluded that the most important conditions required to the vane portion were appropriate rigidity (shape retainability) and excellent durability, avoided from deforming easily even when flying through the air at high speed, in addition to being lightweight. And first, reinforcement of some kind were applied to the thin vane portions for improving shape retainability and durability without inhibiting weight reduction of the vane portion itself.
With regard to the reinforcement of the vane portion, covering the vane portion with, for example, laminated film and the like can be considered. However, since the specific gravity (approximately 1.1) of the film itself is large, for example, assuming that a common film has a thickness of 20 μm and when the common film is adhered to one side of the vane, the weight increases by approximately 0.01 grams. Methods of adhesion such as heat sealing cannot be used depending on the material of the vane portion so that the weight of the adhesives for adhering the film to the vane portion would be added. Therefore, it would be difficult to allow the vane portion to be both lightweight and rigid at a high level.
Therefore, shape retainability and durability of the vane portion were secured without preventing weight reduction of the vane portion itself by forming a film made of resin applied to the vane portion in the embodiments corresponding to the above-mentioned main inventions. And as the embodiment corresponding to the invention besides the aforementioned main invention, first, more preferable materials were defined for the vane portion and the resin film (reinforcement film) and the vane portion is made of nonwoven fabric and the reinforcement coating is any one of waterborne polyurethane, waterborne polyester, waterborne polyolefin, nylon-based emulsion and acrylic-based emulsion. Further, a unit weight of the reinforcement coating per unit area applied to one of the vane portion is greater than or equal to 1.8 g/m2 and less than or equal to 27 g/m2.
The present invention is adapted to embodiments to which a configuration for reinforcing the vane portion and a configuration for achieving excellent flying performance were added without accompanying a large weight increase since weight reduction and shape retainability, and durability of the vane portion itself had been secured in the embodiments corresponding to the main invention. And the embodiments have the characteristics of the following.
The vane portion has reinforcing material made of a foam body layered thereon and the rachis portion is sandwiched by the vane portion and the reinforcing material at the vane supporting portion, and the reinforcing material conforms to a planar shape of an area where the vane portion is formed, and has a planar shape that has a rim cut at apart where the vane portion overlaps another adjacent vane portion in the shuttlecock.
Or the aforementioned reinforcing material has the rim cut while a strip form rib that extends toward another adjacent artificial feather is formed to a part of the pertinent rim. Further, the aforementioned rib portion opposes the aforementioned another adjacent artificial feather and also extends diagonally upward from one portion of the aforementioned rim.
Note that, a shuttlecock using an artificial feather having any of the aforementioned characteristics is also an embodiment of the present invention. And when an “intersection” where the front-back relation of the adjacent vane portions are reversed occurs when hit, to the artificial feather having the vane portion configured with a plane, there is difficulty in bringing back the front-back relation to the initial one with the next hit so that there arises a problem of the flight trajectory being instable. In other words, since the vane of natural feather is not in a film form but a collection of feather bodies called the barbs growing from the rachis, the barbs of the vane slides through the barbs of the adjacent vane even when intersection occurs so that an intersected state can easily return to its initial state while continuing hitting.
Being the case, an embodiment of the present invention covers a shuttlecock that includes a means for inhibiting the intersection. And the shuttlecock includes any of the following characteristics.
Each of the artificial feathers, in a state embedded in the base portion in an annular ring, when a circumferential direction of the annular ring is set as a right-left direction, has an edge portion of one of the right and left vane portions underlapping on a back face side of the vane portion of the another artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions, and the vane portion has a slit portion extending in an up-down direction and communicating a front and a back of the artificial feather, while a band-like binding member continuously penetrates the slit portion of each artificial feather and forms an annular ring with both ends thereof fixed, to fix a front-back relation of the underlapping of the adjacent vane portions.
Each of the artificial feathers, in a state embedded in the base portion in an annular ring, when a circumferential direction of the annular ring is set as a right-left direction, has an edge portion of one of the right and left vane portions underlapping on a back face side of the vane portion of the another artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions, and the vane portion has a string-like binding member continuously penetrating and encircling each artificial feather embedded in an annular ring from a back face toward a front face to fix a front-back relation of the underlapping of the adjacent vane portions.
Each of the artificial feathers, in a state embedded in the base portion in an annular ring, when a circumferential direction of the annular ring is set as a right-left direction, has an edge portion of one of the right and left vane portions underlapping on a back face side of the vane portion of the another artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions, a protrusion is included to an edge portion of one of the right and left directions of the vane portion and slit portions penetrating a front and a back are formed to an area that opposes the protrusion of an artificial feather adjacent in an other direction of the right and left directions in an area where the vane portion is formed, and each artificial feather has a protrusion of an artificial feather adjacent in the other direction inserted into its own slit portions, to fix a front-back relation of the underlapping of the adjacent artificial feather.
And the slit portions are composed of two that are placed parallel and apart from each other, the protrusion is guided from a back face to a front face of one of the slit portions of an artificial feather adjacent in one direction and bent, and inserted through an other of the slit portions, and a tip end of the protrusion is fixed in an overlapped state at part way of the protrusion.
Alternatively, in the shuttlecock using artificial feather including the aforementioned protrusion to the vane portion the protrusion is formed to protrude in one of the right and left directions and bent downward, in an approximately L shape, the slit portions that are formed to each artificial feather are composed of two extending in the right-left direction and being placed in parallel one above an other, and a protrusion of each artificial feather is guided into an upper slit portion of the artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions from a back face to a front face, and inserted into a lower slit portion from a front face to a back face.
The protrusion is formed to protrude in one of the right and left directions and continues to branch into two tongues, in up and down directions, in an approximately T shape, the slit portions that are formed to each artificial feather are composed of two extending in the right-left direction and being placed in parallel one above an other, a protrusion of each artificial feather has an upper tongue guided to an upper slit portion of the artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions from a back face to a front face and bent downward, and has a lower tongue guided to a lower slit portion of the artificial feather adjacent in the one of the directions from a back face to a front face and bent upward, and a tip end of the two tongues of the protrusion are fixed in a state with one overlapping the other.
Basic Structure of Artificial Feather
The resins in Table 1 had a weight increase of 0.05 grams by layering the resins to the initial vane portion 12 which converted was 9 g/m2 of weight increase per unit area. The film thickness and the concentration with regard to the solvent at the time of the application process are assumed to be adjusted. Various application methods such as the dipping method, spraying method and the roll coating method can be employed for forming the reinforcement coating.
Table 1 shows the cutting strength (N) and the cutting elongation (%) in relative values when assuming the vane portion 12 without reinforcement coating is one. As shown in this Table 1, both the cutting strength (N) and the cutting elongation (%) were confirmed to improve by providing a reinforcement coating besides some exceptions. Waterborne polyurethane was particularly found to exhibit excellent cutting strength (N) and cutting elongation (%). Additionally, it can be expected that the burden on the environment during manufacturing the artificial feathers (10) can be relieved since waterborne polyurethane does not use organic solvents. Note that it is presumed that the reinforcing material is not limited to waterborne polyurethane and waterborne polyester, waterborne polyolefin, nylon-based emulsion, and acrylic-based emulsion having properties similar to this waterborne polyurethane can be applied.
Further, when nonwoven cloth is used for the vane portion 12, a reinforcement coating to the surface of the fibers configuring the nonwoven fabric is provided to improve the rigidity of the fiber itself and thus excellent shape retainability is expected to be exhibited. The rachis portion 20 needs to support the vane portion 12 and maintain the entire shape of the artificial feather 10 while having impact-resistance that can resist the impact when being hit and having rigidity. Therefore, for example, polyamide (nylon), polyamide reinforced with glass fiber (glass fiber reinforced polyamide) or various resins such as PBT, ABS, PC and the like can be used as material configuring the rachis portion 20.
Directions and Positional Relationships of Artificial Feather and Names of Each Parts
First, with regard to the artificial feather 10 of the embodiments of the present invention, names of various parts and the up, down, right and left directions and the front and back relations will be defined based on the artificial feather 10 in a state mounted to the base portion 2 of the shuttlecock 1. Here, names of the various parts, directions and the front-back relation will be defined based on
In
With regard to the rachis portion 20, the area in the rachis portion 20 fixed to the vane portion 12 will be called the vane supporting portion 23 and the area protruding downward of the vane portion 12 will be called the calamus portion 24. Note that in the example shown in
The first embodiment of the present invention has an artificial feather that has a configuration for further improving the durability and rigidity of the aforementioned artificial feather 10 having a structure common to the embodiments of the present invention.
Note that as a manufacturing method of the artificial feather 10a according to the first embodiment, for example the following may be adopted. After continuous injection molding by two-color molding or insert molding of the vane portion 12 and the rachis portion 20 or the reinforcing material 15 and the rachis portion, the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 are fixed together by a further two-color molding or insert molding to form a molded product that has the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 layered while sandwiching the rachis portion 20 between the layers. The reinforcing material may be layered by adhering to the vane portion 12 with such as adhesive and double-faced adhesive tape after injection molding of the vane portion 12 and the rachis portion 20 into an integrally molded product. The reinforcement coating may be formed on the front face of the vane portion 12 before injection molding or may be formed during or after molding to the exterior of the artificial feather 10a. In any event, an artificial feather 10a should at least have formed a reinforcement coating on the vane portion 12, have the rachis portion 20 in a sandwiched state between layers of the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15, and have an external shape where the rachis portion 20 is not externally exposed in the vane supporting portion 23.
Note that, in the first embodiment shown here, the base material of the vane portion 12 uses nonwoven fabric that is lightweight and thin and that can reproduce a planar shape closely resembling a vane of natural feather just by cutting, and the vane portion 12 has reinforcement coating made of waterborne polyurethane formed to the nonwoven fabric. Thereby, the vane portion 12 is expected to have an effect of improved high rigidity. Further, the problem of the fibers of the nonwoven fabric coming apart when hit, unique to nonwoven fabric, is also solved. And in the first embodiment, the vane portion 12 is prevented from breaking by absorbing the impact when the vane portion 12 is strongly hit without greatly disturbing the weight reduction by a layered structure of the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 made of a foam body.
However, the characteristics of the artificial feather 10a of the first embodiment is not the layered structure with such vane portion 12 and reinforcing material 15 of a foam body but in the layered shape made with the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15. Specifically, the reinforcing material 15 is not uniformly layered to coincide with the planar shape of the vane portion 12 but when the adjacent artificial feathers 10a in the shuttlecock overlaps one another, the side that has laid thereon the vane portion 12 of another artificial feather 10 has the rim cut at the inner side. Thereby, the weight can be reduced compared with the case when the reinforcing material 15 is layered on the entire area of the vane portion 12.
The distinguishing layer shape of the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 in the artificial feather 10a of the first embodiment can dramatically improve the durability and the impact absorbency of a single vane portion 12 alone without greatly prohibiting weight reduction, and also has an effect of further closely resembling the flight performance and the flight path of natural feather shuttlecocks. Description of the performance of the shuttlecock using the artificial feather 10a of the first embodiment will be given below.
Here, the part where the adjacent artificial feathers (10a, 10b) overlap each other is set as the overlapping area 30 and the part where they do not overlap is set as the sole area 40. And in the overlapping area 30, when the artificial feathers (10a, 10b) positioned on the inner side of the shuttlecock among the adjacent artificial feathers (10a, 10b) are set as the “inner side” artificial feathers (10a, 10b), the total thickness of the rims of two artificial feathers 10b in the overlapping area 30 becomes twice the thickness of the sole area 40 with a shuttlecock using artificial feather 10b having layered thereon the reinforcing material 15 on the entire surface of the vane portion 12, shown in
Whereas with the shuttlecock 1a using artificial feather 10a of the first embodiment shown in
With regard to the front-back relations in the artificial feather 10a, it is a matter of course that the reinforcing material 15 may be positioned on the front face 13 side and the vane portion 12 may be positioned on the front face 13 side.
By the way, the vane portion 12 is not directly hit with the artificial feather 10a having the reinforcing material 15 positioned on the front face 13 side, shown in
Whereas the artificial feather 10c having the vane portion 12 positioned on the front side, shown in
Specifically, as shown in the hollow arrows in
As described above, the artificial feather 10 having formed reinforcement coating on the vane portion 12 was confirmed to have both improved cutting strength and the cutting elongation of the vane portion 12. And the shuttlecock using artificial feathers (10a, 10c) having the reinforcing material 15 cut at the overlapping area while the reinforcing material 15 is layered on the vane portion 12 is expected to have further improved durability without deteriorating the flight performance.
Next, the conditions for improving the durability and flight performance were studied. Specifically, when a large amount of resin to be the reinforcement coating is used for the artificial feathers (10a, 10c) to improve the durability, the weight of a single artificial feather (10a, 10c) body would increase and thus there is a possibility that the flight performance would deteriorate. On the other hand, when the amount of resin is decreased to reduce the weight of the artificial feathers (10, 10a, 10c), the durability would deteriorate. Being the case, various nonwoven fabric having different weights of waterborne polyurethane per unit area applied were prepared and the cutting strength and the cutting elongation of each nonwoven fabric were measured. Additionally, artificial feathers 10c having reinforcing material 15 layered on the back face 14 side of the vane portion 12, using the above various nonwoven fabrics for the vane portion, were made, and the artificial feathers 10c were arranged as shown in
Note that, with regard to durability, two badminton players being the monitors alternately hit the shuttlecock 100 times each, summing to a total of 200 times, by the high clear method where the shuttlecock is hit high and away which allows the vane portion 12 to be damaged easily. Thereafter, evaluation was made by visually examining the vane portion 12 on whether or not there were fluffs created.
And with regard to flight performance, five badminton players being the monitors hit various shuttlecocks with different artificial feather structures by the well known hairpin shot and had the monitors evaluate whether or not the shuttlecock could be controlled to fly along a path that were intended by the monitors. Specifically, the shuttlecock using artificial feather that did not have reinforcement coating formed was set as the reference value of three, and evaluation was performed into three steps being one when the shuttlecock could not be controlled, two when controlling was rather difficult and three when it was the same as the reference by subjective evaluation, and the average value of the five monitors were used as the evaluation result.
Table 2 shows the cutting strength and the cutting elongation of the vane portion 12 alone relative to a weight (g/m2) of reinforcement coating per unit area, and the evaluation results on durability and flight performance of the shuttlecock. Additionally, Table 3 shows the evaluation on the flight performance of the various shuttlecocks that were made by the five monitors.
Table 2 shows cutting strength (N) and the cutting elongation (%) of each of the samples a to i and the evaluation results on flight performance and durability of the shuttlecock made using samples a to i, where the artificial feather that does not have formed reinforcement coating on the vane portion 12 is set as sample a and eight types of artificial feathers having different amounts of resin applied per unit area (g/m2) were set as samples b to i. Note that, the comprehensive evaluation on the flight performance were “poor” when the average evaluation result of the five monitors A to E shown in Table 3 was 1.0 and over and under 1.5, “fair” when 1.5 and over and under 2.5 and “good” when 2.5 and over and 3 and under. And with regard to the pass/fail determination, the shuttlecock was judged to pass if it is suitable for practical use. “Fair” shows that the flight performance of the shuttlecock does not pose a problem when used as a shuttlecock for workout and “good” shows that the flight performance of the shuttlecock is such that the shuttlecock can be used in a competition game. Therefore, Table 2 shows that the shuttlecock using artificial feather 10c having applied thereon reinforcement coating of 1.8 g/m2 and more as well as layered thereon reinforcing material 15 made of a foam body on the back side 14 did not have fluffs created, and had favorable durability and further was understood that the flight performance was of a level that would not pose a problem in actual use when the amount of reinforcement coating applied was less than 27.0 g/m2.
By the way, when there is fear of strength lacking at the part where the reinforcing material 15 is not layered in the vane portion 12, instead of making the shape with one of the right and left outlines of the vane portion 12 cut, the reinforcing material 15 can be simply made such that a part of the rim is cut to form a strip extending toward the adjacent other artificial feather 10 so to make the extended portion function as a rib that supports the film-like vane portion 12.
Further as shown in this
Further, with the use of the level difference created at the overlapping area due to this rib 15r, airflow flowing in the direction from below to above can be actively created.
As described above, when an “intersection” is created in the shuttlecock, it is difficult to make the intersection come back to the initial state on its own. Being the case, a shuttlecock having a structure in which an intersection is unlikely to occur will be given as the second embodiment of the present invention.
Note that, when fixing together the two ends of the binding member 60, having the two ends tied to the rachis portion 20 may be considered from the viewpoint of simplicity of the work, however even in this case, since the rachis portion 20 besides the one that has the end portions of the binding member 60 tied thereto does not have the binding member 60 wound therearound, the rachis portion 20 that has tied thereto the end portions of the binding member 60 can also move freely. Therefore, the rachis portion 20 would not be bent even when the two ends of the binding member 60 are tied to the rachis portion 20. In other words, it can be understood that the structure of the rachis portion 20 of the artificial feather 10c adjacent to the artificial feather 10c that has tied thereto the binding member 60 to the rachis portion 20, does not have a part where the binding member 60 is wound therearound and thus is prevented from the problem of the rachis portion 20 that has the ends of the binding member 60 wound around being bent.
In the second embodiment, a string-like binding member 60 encircled the skirt portion 4 while penetrating through the artificial feathers 10c to prevent intersection. The third embodiment of the present invention is a shuttlecock having another structure for preventing the intersection.
In the third embodiment, the artificial feathers 10f have slit portions 50 that extend in the up-down direction while communicating the front and the back formed to the areas where the reinforcing material 15 is not formed in the vane portions 12. And the band-like binding member 61 while penetrating the slit portions 50 encircles the skirt portion 4 of the shuttlecock 1c, and is formed into an annular ring by an appropriate method such as adhesion by heating or adhesion using adhesives to fix the ends of the binding member 61, as well.
Specifically, the binding member 61 penetrates through the slit portion 50 from the back face 14 to the front face 13 side of the inner artificial feather 10f at the overlapping area 30 of the adjacent artificial feathers 10f. And the binding member 61 penetrates through the slit portion 50 of the artificial feather 10c adjacent to the relevant inner artificial feather 10c. Thereby, the binding member 61 continuously penetrates the overlapping area 30 of each artificial feather 10f to bind the adjacent artificial feathers 10f together.
In the third embodiment, even when the artificial feather 10f on the inside or the outside at the overlapping area 30 is biased inward the shuttlecock id by being hit and an intersection should nearly occur, an intersection is difficult to occur since the binding member 61 continuously penetrates the artificial feathers 10f. For example in
Note that in the third embodiment, the binding member 61 is guided to the front face 13 side at the overlapping area 30 so that the binding member 60 can be hardly seen from the outside the shuttlecock 1c. Therefore, there is also a benefit of the appearance not being largely spoiled. Note that, appropriate material such as a resin film or fiber material can be employed as the binding member 61 as long as the specific gravity is small. Nonwoven fabric same as the vane portion 12 is used as the binding member 61 in this example. And by using material same as the vane portion 12 allows the shuttlecock to have a uniform appearance and has succeeded in possessing an appearance further closely resembling that of natural feather shuttlecocks. It is a matter of course that reinforcement coating may be coated on also the binding member 61.
In this modified example, since a band-like binding member 61 having width intervenes across from a slit portion 50 of its own to the right edge 16 at the back face 14 of the artificial feather 10g on the outside at the overlapping area 30, the front face 13 of the artificial feather 10g on the outside would not creep under the back face 14 side of the pertinent artificial feather 10g on the inside from the left edge 17 of the artificial feather 10g on the inside. In other words, intersection is prevented from occurring.
The shuttlecock according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention has a characteristic in a structure that prevents intersection similar to the second and third embodiments.
As shown in
Two slit portions (81, 82) extending in the right-left direction and arranged parallel one over the other are formed in the overlapping area 30 on the right side of the artificial feathers 10h. In the example shown, the slit portions (81, 82) penetrate both the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 that are in a layered state. And as shown in
Note that the fourth embodiment is not limited to the example described above and, for example, there can be an intersection inhibiting structure where one slit portion extending in the up-down direction is formed with the protrusion protruding in the left direction and inserting the protrusion into the slit portion. Also, taking into consideration the possibility that the protrusion may come out of the slit portion when hit, two slit portions extending in the up-down direction parallel in the right-left direction may be formed to guide a protrusion from the back face to the front face of the slit portion on the right and thereafter inserting the tip end of the protrusion into the slit portion on the left side making the protrusion protrude to the back face side of the adjacent artificial feather.
In any case, the shuttlecock according to the fourth embodiment has a characteristic of preventing intersection from occurring with a structure where a protrusion formed on one of the right or left edge of the vane portion is inserted into a slit portion of the artificial feather adjacent on the front face side, in the overlapping area between the adjacent artificial feathers.
In the shuttlecock 1e of the aforementioned fourth embodiment, the shape of the vane portion 12 itself has an intersection inhibiting structure. Therefore, there is no need to use a string-like or a band-like binding member (60, 61) and fix the ends of the binding member (60, 61) to form an annular ring as in the second and third embodiments. Being the case, the cost for the binding member (60, 61) can be saved compared to the second and third embodiments. On the other hand, the structure for inhibiting intersection being realized by inserting the protrusion 70 into the slit portions (81, 82) does not dismiss the possibility of the inserted protrusion 70 falling out of the slit portions (81, 82) when hit. Therefore, a shuttlecock having a structure where the protrusion 70 does not fall out from the slit portions will be given as the fifth embodiment.
Note that the protrusion 70 may be first inserted through the lower slit portion 82 and inserted through the upper slit portion 81 thereafter. In this case, the tip end 70a of the protrusion 70 will be layered on the front face 13 side of the base end 70b. Further, in the fourth and fifth embodiments, the intersection inhibiting structure was explained with the artificial feather 10h having the reinforcing material 15 layered on the front face 13 side, however, the front-back relation between the vane portion 12 and the reinforcing material 15 may be reversed.
In the fifth embodiment, the tip end 70a side and the base end 70b side of the L-shape protrusion 70 inserted through the two slit portions (81, 82) were fixed, however, the shape and the like of the protrusion 70 is not limited to this example. In the following, several modified examples of the fifth embodiment whose shapes of the protrusion, the locations where the slit portions are formed or the directions in which they are formed differ will be given.
Note that, as shown in
The shuttlecocks (1b to 1d) of the second and third embodiments inhibits intersection from occurring with a structure that has the binding member 60 in a thin string-like form or in a band-like form with some width penetrating the vane portion 12 of the artificial feathers (10c, 10d, 10e, 10f). In the fourth and fifth embodiments, intersection is inhibited from occurring by inserting the protrusions (70 to 72) into the slit portions (81 to 86) formed to the vane portion 12. And the second to fifth embodiments employ a structure having reinforcement coating formed on the vane portion 12 being the basic structure of the artificial feather 10 shown as the first embodiment. Therefore, the vane portion 12 would not tear starting from the part where the string-like binding member 60 penetrates or the end points of the slit portions (50, 81 to 86) where the band-like binding member 61 or the protrusions (70 to 72) penetrate even if the shuttlecock is repeatedly hit in a state where the string-like binding member 60 is penetrating or a band-like binding member 61 or protrusions (70 to 72) are penetrating through the slit portions (50, 81 to 86), respectively. In other words, an intersection inhibiting structure using binding members (60, 61) or protrusions (70 to 72) are realized by forming reinforcement coating on the vane portion 12.
Further, a string-like binding member 60 penetrates the vane portion 12 at a point in the second embodiment whereas the band-like binding member 61 and the protrusions (70 to 72) are inserted through the linear slit portions (50, 81 to 86) formed to the vane portion 12, to inhibit intersection in the third to fifth embodiments. Therefore in the third to fifth embodiments, the vane portion 12 would not be twisted due the shuttlecock being strongly hit so that the vane portion 12 rotates with a point as the axis. And there is an extremely low probability of an intersection occurring that is unique to the case where a string-like binding member 60 is used.
Specifically, with a string-like binding member 60, when the circulating position thereof is too far from the tip end of the vane portion 12 and the tip end of the vane portion 12 moves considerably when hit, the upper part of the vane portion 12 would be twisted so that a problem of an intersection would occur at the upper part of the vane portion 12 even if an intersection does not occur to the position where the binding member 60 penetrates. For example, when a string-like binding member 60 is used in a shuttlecock using artificial feather imitating natural feather, commonly, intersection due to twisting of the aforementioned vane portion 12 is likely to occur when the encircling position of the string-like binding member 60 is not within 18 mm from the tip end of the vane portion 12. In contrast, a band-like binding member 61 or protrusions (61, 70 to 72) having width linearly penetrate the vane portion 12 of the shuttlecock (10c to 10k) to support the vane portion 12 in a plane in the shuttlecock (1c, 1d, 10e, 10f) of the third and fourth embodiments and the shuttlecock of the fifth embodiment. Thereby, intersection due to twisting of the vane portion 12 is almost certainly inhibited.
Whereas in a case intersection is inhibited by a string-like binding member 60 as in the second embodiment, the artificial feathers 10c configuring the shuttlecock 1b are supported by a point allowing the artificial feathers 10c to move freely to a certain extent around the point so that the flight performance is superior to the shuttlecock having an intersection inhibiting structure using band-like binding member 61 and protrusions (70 to 72). It is a matter of course that the shuttlecocks according to the second to the fifth embodiments have the movements of each of their vane portions 12 made easier certainly improving the flight performance compared to conventional shuttlecocks having a string-like binding member encircling the rachis portion 20 to be wound therearound.
Further, there is a possibility of the rachis portion 20 breaking when the shuttlecock is hit hard with the thin string acting as the fulcrum in a case the string-like binding member is wound around the rachis portion 20, however, such possibility does not exist in the second embodiment since the string-like binding member 60 is merely penetrating the front and back of the vane portion 12. The band-like binding member 61 having width linearly supporting the vane portion 12 in the third embodiment allows impact to be dispersed so that the possibility of the rachis portion 20 breaking due to the binding member 60 is almost none. Since the protrusions (70 to 72) do not run across the rachis portion 20 in the fourth and fifth embodiments, breaking of the rachis portion 20 due to the protrusions (70 to 72) does not occur in principle.
The present invention can be applied to shuttlecocks used in badminton.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-199201 | Sep 2010 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2011/070202 | 9/6/2011 | WO | 00 | 4/29/2013 |
