Manufacturing Pickleball Rackets with Sandwich Composite Construction and 3D Printing Core Layer

J. C. Chen1*and C. M. Wu2

1 Graduate School of Fabric Technology Management, Lee-Ming Institute of Technology, New Taipei City 243083, Taiwan, R.O.C.

2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan, R.O.C.

*burnier@mail.lit.edu.tw

 This study investigates the manufacturing technique of sandwich composites with a three-dimensional (3D) printing core layer for the production of pickleball rackets. The core layer was created using fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology using PLA [1,2], while carbon fabrics reinforced with epoxy resin were employed as the skin layers. Various geometric configurations [3,4]of the 3D printing core, such as square, circular, triangular, and honeycomb shapes, were examined in both in-plane and out-of-plane orientations. The mechanical properties of the sandwich composites were evaluated through tensile, compressive, and bending tests, along with an impact analysis using an IZOD impacting instrument. Experimental results revealed the superior lightweight characteristics of the sandwich composite with a triangular core. Moreover, sandwich composites with the core in the out-of-plane direction exhibited enhanced tensile, bending, and impact resistance, while the in-plane core configurations displayed excellent compression resistance. Notably, the mechanical properties of the sandwich composites with 3D printing core outperformed those with a polyurethane (PU) foam core