Tennis Rackets – Hyper-Carbon

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Tennis Rackets – Hyper-Carbon

Time Line

12th Century – Tennis rackets was made from solid Hickory or ash. These made it more difficult for players to produce effective shots because they were heavy and quite awkward.

1960’s and 70s – Laciest introduced Aluminium and Prince brings Fibreglass into the production of Tennis rackets.

1980s - The manufacturers began to design lighter, graphite rackets. Graphite rackets have a rigid structure that does not bend on impact with the ball, so the strings deflect and rebound immediately. They are approximately 30% more powerful than the older wooden rackets.

1990s – Titanium is used to produce the more expensive rackets.

2002 Revolution – Wilson presents the revolutionary new material to produce Tennis rackets – HYPERCARBON

Hybercarbon is a form of carbon fibre material produced with Polyacrylonitrile.

What makes it Different from other materials?

The Transfer of Kinetic Energy

When the tennis ball is moving it contains kinetic energy. Kinetic Energy of the ball is transferred to the racket on impact as heat when the molecules of the racket vibrate. However, with Hypercarbon, little kinetic energy is transferred to heat, and most of it is re-emitted as kinetic energy. This ensures that the molecules move and vibrate less, and so give off less heat. In doing so, it does not exhaust the ball of its kinetic energy. Thus the ball is able to move off the racket with more power.

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Compared to other Materials

Hypercarbon has great strength, in  and  - i.e. it has a very good ability to bear high stress, meaning it takes a large force or pressure to break the material. This strength comes from the way the molecules are bonded - they are bonded in very strong covalent bonds. Strength is basically a materials resistance to failure.

Tensile Strength =

This is because when stress is applied, the strong fibres within the matrix take up the stress and if one fibre breaks the rest of the fibres ...

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