Following on from the discussion on Titanium...What ever happenened to Kevlar? I have a Winex racket(Kevlar 999) that uses it, and I know that a few other manufacturers did start to play with it, but why has it not become popular like Ti? Kevlar is used is a lot of Flex/Strength environments such as fishing rods, boat masts, composite bikes parts etc. Which to me seems like it should be suited to racket technology. Any one have any ideas, or own a Kevlar enhanced racket? Mark
Kevlar is a very strong material, and also very light, but unlike Titanium, which is a synthetic metal alloy, Kevlar is a polymer, a type of high-density plastic. It's extremely strong (used by the US Army for their body armor and helmets) but it is not stiff enough to be used in racquets, at least, not in any significant quantities. I experimented/played with Kevlar samples in the physics lab when I was a student and it is very flexible. A 100% Kevlar racquet would feel like plastic toy and be far too soft to play with. I think the racquets which do incorporate a small amount are using it as a bit of a gimmick because it is such a well-known material and people associate it with strength.
I assume this is same goes with the material Boron. I heard Boron are more expensive to manufacture than Titalium.
biggest thing was the high tension ability of the rackets with kevlar. freind's got an old carlton kevlar or soemthing, with a tension of almost 40 on it. probably would deform the head of a regular carbon graphite rackets.
Carlton are renowned for taking high tensions, and actually they claim that their flag ship model AS-1 will take 40 lbs. And thats's a H.M. graphite racquet as far as I know.
Boron is extremely light but expensive to manufacture. If you will forgive my frequent comparisons to other sports, I read about six years ago that a new manufacturer had built a bicycle from boron tubing that was supposed to be lighter than titanium, aluminum or carbon (frame weighed 1.0 kg, at least .1 to .4 kg less than other materials). It also cost between US$20,000 and $25,000. I have an old "boron" tennis racquet from Pro-Kennix, a Jose Luis Clerc model circa 1984, that used to be one of Rod Laver's (I was friends with his son, who would get his dad's rejects to use or sell cheap to friends). This racquet had some sort of boron layer on a laminated wood and carbon frame, but it was heavy as hell (probably close to 500g).
one word... PRICE I think it may be more expensive to use Kelvar isn't it? It was like Boron craze in the earlier nineties... I still have a Yonex Boron 200. That for me was the best racquet. Too bad I had to retire it. I'm looking into the Yang Yang Tactics 9000 racquet, albeit an older model, but I'd like to see more of what this Kelvar technology is about.
