Swaylock's Fundraiser to Measure the Effects of Flex on a Surfboard

I just created the paypal account where you can send your donations.  Any donation amount is appreciated.  $5 to $1000,  whatever you can manage.  The cost of materials for project is $2000, which we figured would be 100 surfers at $20 each.

**Interested in Donating?**

Please consider donating today by clicking this donate button to help fund this unique and important research project. Donations will go directly to a dedicated PayPal account set up and managed by BenjaminThomson.

 

Dr. Mascarenas and I setup the wireless tech and accelerometers today.  In a weeks time we’ll have data on acceleration experienced during surfing.

So in one week we’ll be ready to buy the next phase of sensors…we’ll need some money!

 

Pictures below:

  1. Success! acceleration readings were streaming at 200 samples/sec.

  2. Dr. Mascarenas’ old lab at UCSD…notice his baby on the middle table.  An unmanned helicopter used to inspect bridges.

  3. Soldering some wires to the power supply.



Electricity and water do not mix!

Update!

We did our first surfing test a week ago.  It was a success because it failed in several ways that are easy to fix…needed more battery power for our laptops, an umbrella to eliminate glare, and other things that you don’t think of when you have the comfort and amenities of university lab.

Also, I have to tighten-up the software we wrote for data acquisition.  In the lab, data streamed nicely. But in the ocean, bits were lost and the software got confused…anyway, it will be fixed soon.

We are also reconsidering on-board data acquisition, probably in supplement to the wireless:
http://gumstix.com/
pretty rad stuff!

Thanks to everyone who made a donation.  I’ll post an update every two weeks.

Health!
Benjamin

Gumstix is a good idea. I eliminates a lot of complexity with the wireless data transmission and you’ll get much better sampling rates. Plus, you should be able to get away with a lot less battery power. You can get microSD cards for pretty cheap and just use those for data storage and download the info after each session. K.I.S.S

 

Can you post any pics of the working board setup? Curious to see it.

 

Wow, this looks great.  I don’t know why I didn’t notice it earlier.  Yes, logging all your data locally (gumstix are decent)  We use them for quick turn things and download it later is a good idea.  I will look at your link and send you some money. 

One curiosity for me would be the initial strain calibration for your board vs. temperature as to taking your board at X temperature and then placing it into the water at Y temperature and then backing that out as some DC offset.  Adding a video/camera that is tied to a  clock (GPS or internal) would be a good idea to locally sync a board to the environmental conditions it is undergoing. 

 

[edit]  Check’s in the mail.

Progress Report!

 

Things are going well. It started out a little slow because I underestimated the time needed for all the bureaucratic and logistical stuff...getting my undergrad engineers up to speed, finding a shaper, glasser and material supplier, getting instruments etc. Anyway now most of the notfun stuff is out of the way and the engineering work will start to move faster.

 

George Gall from Plus One surfboards is going to be donating his time to dial and build the boards to spec. I'm super stoked to work with him. He's sharp, and understands when my book smarts aren't so smart. He actually designs, shapes and glasses under the same roof. This means there's a lot of control and personal attention in Plus One's operation which is good industry practice, but in this project it is super-critical. He's got a hot cure room and a CNC machine.

 

George and I will be taking you through an R&D protocol for developing a customized composite (composites include PU/EPS, Polyester/Epoxy, any type of cloth, veneer). So essentially, if you want to dial a composite to some spec like “I want it 35% more flex” or “50% more resistance to buckling” or “20% more resistance to impacts” or “10% heavier” or some combination of specs...you'll be able to hit those targets without building numerous boards. In this project, we are going to dial 3 boards of identical weight and durability, but with 3 levels of flex 20% apart.

 

The goal is to introduce hobbyist and small-time board builders to an easy, inexpensive, systematic and objective method for improving their constructions. With about $50 and access to a hardware store, you can run flex, buckling and impact tests that are comparable to what we do at the university.  I will start posting the methods in about 3 weeks.

 

While George and I dial the board flex, the 5 undergraduate mechanical engineers are developing a flow meter to be integrated with the accelerometers, onboard gumstix daq and wireless daq.  In a couple weeks, I'll be getting the strain gages working with the daqs, then the pressure gages.

 

Thanks for the patience!

ben,

forgive me 'cause i'm old.

you have used the term "dial" numeous times in the previous post.

if it is intended to relate to some thought process or technical procedure would you please provide a bit more detail?

regards,

bill

Hi Bill,  I will be posting on the technical procedure in a few weeks.  For now, here’s a link to a powepoint presentation I gave at Sacred Craft 1 year ago.  It goes over the process that we will be doing…some of it is slightly different than it was a year ago.

 

http://boardformula.com/media2/miles/RnDmanual.ppt

Hi Ben, this a highly interesting project, mainly because of inherent practical difficulties. When you say that you will build 3 boards of identical weight and durability, but with 3 levels of flex 20% apart, you mean variation in structural rigidity or free body natural frequency? And, how is “recoil rate” related to frequency? In brief, which are the hypothesis to be proved or disproved by the experiments and which are the proposed methods?

Progess Report!

Hank Johns from Graphite Master has supplied us with all the materials that we needed.  He's definitely a progressive mind in the industry.

 George Gall and I laid-up 21 unique lamina schedules, then did three-point bending tests to acquire flex (stiffness), failure mode, failure strength, and toughness. Then we did impact tests.  Results are here:

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/tests-results-13-unique-constructions

The testing equipment is all homemade...designed so that anyone can replicate the tests and start their own OBJECTIVE	 R&D process in their garage/backyard/factory.    I probably won't post the equipment setup for another month, because we didn't have time to film it yet.

The winning lamina schedule is (from outer to inner) 3oz e-glass + 2oz
Innegra + 3oz e-glass @45deg orientation.  It's slightly more flexible
than stock boards, same weight, far better buckling resistance and the
impact resistance is off the charts.  (results attached)

Next week we are going to be glassing two identically shaped boards, one
with stock glassing the other with the enhanced glassing.  Then a few
different riders are going to ride both of them.  If everything goes well,
George and I will start instrumenting the boards in a month.


Please refer to this thread to find the test results and for discussion:
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/tests-results-13-unique-constructions

I just got some bad news about
30 mins ago, that the foam supplier we wanted to go with won’t be able
to donate blanks.  Nobody’s rich in this industry.  We need 8 blanks to
continue with this study.  All other materials have been donated:

FCS donated fins and plugs.

Graphite Master donated all cloths and resin.

Plus One Surfboards is donating their facilities…George Gall is donating A LOT of his time.

We’ve had quite a few donations from swaylock members that are going to
cover some of the sensors.  Last donor was pompano about a month
ago…very generous…Thanks!

Anyway…

**We need $350 to buy the blanks.  **If you guys like what
we’re doing, please donate $5, $50, or $350, whatever you can afford. 
A lot of little costs have been coming out of my pocket…they add up
quickly for a grad student.

Swaylock founder, Michael Paler, posted a paypal account for anybody to donate to this project.  On the first post of this thread.

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/swaylocks-fundraiser-to-measure-effects-flex-surfboard

Thanks!

Hey!  Send me a PM if you would like to be one of the riders in our
Flex research project.  You must meet the following criteria.  If you
know someone that meets this criteria, please tell them.

Sex: Male

Height: 5’ 9.5" - 5’10.5"

Weight: 157-163 lbs

Foot size: 10.5"-11"  (this is critical, please measure)  it’s about a 10.5 US shoe size.

Age: doesn’t matter, but must be in good shape

Ability: Intermediate to Pro  (able to to surf well in any conditions socal presents)

You should be availabe to surf at Blacks (souths 220-200 deg), Scripps (wind swells) OR Lowers (souths 170-200).  Unfortunately we missed the winter swell season, so probably half of the sessions will be at Lowers.

 

There will be 3 identical boards that are 5’10" x 19" x 2.25"   …similar to this model:

http://www.plusonesurf.com/custom.php?board=The%20Squish%20/%20Squirt&image=squish

Each
board will only differ by the flex.  You will not know which board you
are riding.  You will be surfing with two other surfers just like you. 
Every 20 mins you will switch boards.  The boards are instrumented to
track velocity, acceleration and how the boards change shape while you
are riding them.  You will also be filmed and the video will be
synchronized to all the data that is collected from the board.

 

Send
me a PM with your email.  When we do testing, we’ll send out an email
to everyone 1-5 days in advance.  If you’re availale to ride you can
respond to the email to notify us that you are coming.

I got 2 riders so far.  I would like to have 6 because we need 3 riders for each session and I’m sure there will always be a few that can’t make it.

Ben, give us an update, please.  thx

Greg, here’s the update:

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-first-two-builds

It turns out that this experiment is far more time consuming than anticipated.

 

Nevertheless, many good biproducts of the process are emerging:

 

Problem#1: Foot deflections

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem1-foot-deflection

 

Problem#2: Mass not Weight!

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem2-massnot-weight

 

Problem#3: Volume, foil and construction

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem3-foil-and-construction

 

Oh yeah, I am building the boards myself now, everything except the cnc.  Computer design, finish shape, sandwich, glass, wet-bag, sand, fins, finish coat…everything.  Not gonna lie…I don’t enjoy it, but the results are super enjoyable.

A similar effort done by Pukas, looking good :

http://vimeo.com/20197603

 

Any news on the project Benjamin?

I’m quite surprised that no one reacted to that video, it looks good to me and quite similar to the project presented in this thread.

http://vimeo.com/20197603

 

 

[quote="$1"]

...many good biproducts of the process are emerging:

 

Problem#1: Foot deflections

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem1-foot-deflection

 

Problem#2: Mass not Weight!

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem2-massnot-weight

 

Problem#3: Volume, foil and construction

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/flex-research-problem3-foil-and-construction

 ..

[/quote]

yes those are useful spin-offs to emerge. I've taken a look at some of the reponses to those threads which question the value/ability to quantify that sort of thing given that there is no standard design for the ordinary surfing enthusiast.

Nevertheless elite surfers all favour much the same sort of potato chip surfboard design and tend to fall into a fairly narrow physique range - the males medium height and build, the women seem to have a higher percentage of smaller than average (I wonder if shorter leg length favours HP surfing?) from looking at the ASP website http://www.aspworldtour.com/

So even though what they favour is unlikely to be of immediate use to me I would like to know just how much a board flexes when under the feet of different high level surfers and also what sort of flex they prefer - from an academic interest. I suspect Taylor Knox bends his boards more than most!

I was watching the Quicksilver pro at snapper rocks on free to air TV the last two weekends and they are giving GPS to some of the surfers to wear. Mick Fanning managed about 40 km an hour - during a turn apparently, although what sort of turn I don't know, nor do they say what the straight line/bottom turn speed of the different surfers are - just top speeds. Hopefully this project will fill in that sort of detail with lots of extra data on flex.