Patent Application
20070232422
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to baseball bats, and, more particularly, to an improved baseball bat having a break resistant structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Baseball bats, particularly those constructed of wood, are well known in the art. However, their drawback is that they are easily broken during game play due to a larger shock by the ball. As a result of the drawback of the wooden bats, several alternative baseball bat structures have been developed.
A well-known alternative is to use metal in a ball bat's construction. This has several problems, including particularly the increasing costs of such metal bats and the prohibition against such bats by Major League Baseball.
A lesser-known alternative is proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,827,659 to Chen. Chen disclosed a baseball bat made of bamboo. While this construction is advantageous for strength and other reasons, the problem of ball bat breakage has still not been solved due to the rough fibers and nodes thereof.
For the foregoing reasons, there is still a need for an improved baseball bat that can reduce construction costs and at the same time reduce the frequency of broken bats. The improved bat must at least include a reinforcing structure which reduces the incidence of breakage.
The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a baseball bat which has a reinforcing structure on the critical stress area of a baseball bat to reduce the incidence of breakage.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide an improved baseball bat that can have the all advantages of the wooden materials.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a novel break resistant baseball bat that has a vibration absorbing area to reduce the vibration created by impact with a ball, and thereby minimizes the likelihood of breakage.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a baseball bat which comprises a main body and a reinforced core. The main body is made of wooden materials so that the bat should have the all advantages of the wooden materials. The main body is an elongated circular bat and includes a handle portion, a barrel portion defining a ball hitting portion, and an outwardly tapered intermediate portion between the handle portion and the barrel portion. The reinforced core is made of bamboo materials and is disposed within the main body extending along the axis thereof. Whereby the bat provided by the present invention can have a break resistant advantage contributed by the bamboo core to reduce the incidence of breakage.
A specific feature of the present invention is that the reinforced core is laminated from a plurality of layers of bamboo plate so that the nodes of bamboo materials will not be fixed on a stationary position.
A still further feature of the present invention is that there is a vibration absorbing area near the ball hitting portion of the bat so that the vibration created by impact with a ball will be reduced, and thereby minimizes the likelihood of breakage.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings wherein:
Referring now to the drawings, a baseball bat 10 of a traditional configuration and size is shown. The bat 10 has a main body 20 and a reinforced core 30.
The main body 20 is made of wooden materials, such as ash or maple. The main body 20 has a barrel portion 22 to define a ball hitting portion and a handle portion 24 with a knob 25 on the end thereof. An outwardly tapered intermediate portion 26 forms a transition between the handle portion 24 and the barrel portion 22.
The reinforced core 30 is an elongated rod having a circular cross section and embedded in the main body 20 extending along the axis of the main body 20. In this embodiment, the core 30 is made from five layers of bamboo plate 32 which are laminated together by a suitable adhesive. The diameter of the core 30 is 15 mm and the diameter of the barrel portion 22 of the body 20 is 63 mm.
The layers of bamboo plate 32 may vary somewhat depending upon the style of the bat. As shown in
However, as shown in
Further, it must understand that according the aspect of the present invention, as shown in
In order to verify the effect of the bat according to the present invention, an actual hitting test was conducted, using the bat 10 according to the present invention as described above and a conventional baseball bat made of maple with a barrel portion thereof having a 63 mm diameter.
The actual hitting test was under the condition that a testing bat hit at an impact speed of 90 mile/h against a ball moving at a velocity of 90 mile/h. The result of the test was that the bat 10 did not have any visible cracks after 1200 hits and the conventional bat was broken just after 120 hits.
It is therefore apparent that the present invention discloses a baseball bat with a break resist structure which is a vast improvement over prior art wooden bats and the like.
