Get Your Alpha Case Crystals In Order!

January 11, 2008July 9, 2018 admin 661 Views

Have you ever wondered if you should orient the hexagonal symmetry of your club’s alpha case crystals in a specific manner? Of course you have… I mean who hasn’t?

What kind of golfer would you be if you couldn’t sketch out a hexagonal closely packed crystal structure (as seen below) in 30 seconds or less!

Well, thankfully for all of us… there are engineers working in the golf industry that think about things such as the hexagonal symmetry of a club face’s alpha case crystals.

Interestingly, according to a patent application that published yesterday, the orientation of the alpha case crystals in a club face plays a major role in the durability of the club head. In fact a table in the application indicates that a club head with a poor orientation may actually only have one-half the life span of a club head with good orientation. Amazing stuff!

The application was filed by SRI Sports (US Pub. No. 20080009369 titled “Golf Club Head”) and describes the invention as:

A golf club head comprises a face portion improved in the durability by increasing the strength of the toe-side upper region of the face portion. The face portion is formed from a unidirectionally rolled plate of a titanium alloy having alpha phase, and at least in the toe-side upper region, the titanium alloy has alpha phase crystals of a hexagonal closely packed structure whose hexagonal symmetry axis (a) is oriented in the direction of a line (k) drawn between the sweet spot (SS) and the toe end point (TP).

The following are a few of the drawings from the application.

Pretty cool stuff!

Dave Dawsey – The Golf Intellectual Property Lawyer