I followed a link on seabreeze.com.au to a Naish Catalogue and was looking at the boards. I was very stoked to see that for flex and rocker they are using a parameterised description instead of the usual meaningless explanations like 'soft flex or aggressive rocker'. Instead they use more details parameters to describe it e.g. r8/4/10 meaning from the center to the tip the sections of the boards contribute 8mm then 4mm then 10mm to the overall rocker.
http://2013-mid-season.catalogs.naishkites.com/#page/33
This was one of the original goals of the Board-Off Design tool. Namely, to be able to express all details of a boards shape through a small number of parameters so that if made a change to the board you would then have very precise way of describing the change (via the change to the parameters) and so attribute the change in performance to the change in parameters.
Similarly they are expressing flex with a parameter. In Board Off, I've tended to you a standard 'theoretic' test of 20kg force applied to the tip with the midpoint of the board or the midpoint of the foot strap help in place and the deflection calculated. I don't know what there standard test is ( would be great to know) so might see if they'll share any details....
I belive that the values are the curevature radius.
ReplyDeleteHi Olia
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right. I came across an with a designer at naish and that is how he described them. However, there is some some important detail missing in order to make sense of it. 'Radius of Curvature' suggests that each section is the arc of a circle. However, with different radius section meeting there would be a kink where the radius changes. This means that either it the curvature radius at a point ( maybe the mid-point of the section) or its the average of the curvature over the section. I'm putting my money on it being at a point and that there are some extra unspoken constraints on the lines they use to draw the rocker profiles that means specifying the curvature at a point uniquely specifies the whole curve.
I did email the designer Larse,I think, but not surprisingly heard nothing back so the mystery remains a mystery.
What do you think?