Elasticity and rigidity advance inline skates
A
DuPont (UK) product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 4, 2003
Italian company MGM has launched a new generation of its leading Fila brand of inline skates with a wheel hub made of DuPont Crastin PBT.
Italian company MGM has launched a new generation of its leading Fila brand of inline skates with a wheel hub made of DuPont Crastin PBT and a broader skate wheel that enable users to skate faster with less effort.
These innovative inline skates were introduced at the ISPO trade show in Munich at the end of June.
According to MGM, Crastin PBT thermoplastic polyester resin was selected for the hub of the new skate wheel - a critical component that is moulded in a distinctive, orange colour - because of the material's excellent impact resistance, dimensional stability, and good mix of elasticity and rigidity.
The company's Research and Development Director, Claudio Zampieri said: "The wheel diameter on most inline skates is 80mm.
We worked with members of Fila's international racing team to create 90 and 100mm-diameter wheels that offer a speed advantage to the user while maintaining all the safety features and grip of traditional wheels".
"Increasing the outer diameter of the wheel meant that we had to enlarge the wheel hub, which also contains the bearings.
To do this, we needed a thermoplastic material with excellent resistance to impact and outstanding dimensional stability.
The hub is subject to extreme mechanical stress and so if an inferior quality material had been used, deformity could be possible, endangering the skater's performance".
"In our tests, Crastin PBT fully met our specifications in terms of flatness and impact resistance.
It also gave us the elasticity needed for this component, and successfully absorbs the vibration caused by the wheel rolling over the ground.
In addition, Crastin PBT bonds well with polyurethane.
This means that the hub can be injection moulded and then the wheel can be over-moulded afterwards, minimising production costs".
It took five months for MGM to develop the wheel hub.
The next generation of Fila inline skates containing the new, broader wheel and hub - Matrix 2004, Vertige and WorldCup 90 - will be available in stores by early 2004.
The new generation skates will also be used by Fila's international inline skate racing team.
Team captain, Ippolito Sanfratello, said: "Using these new skates with larger diameter wheels, you can cover more space with the same number of strokes.
You can skate faster while using the same amount of energy".
MGM's Zampieri said: "In the new models with an increased diameter wheel and wheel hub, the larger distance between the wheel's centre of rotation and the ground increases the amplitude of each stroke.
This solution has proven particularly successful in marathon races where athletes have to cover long distances and thus need all the help they can get in terms of energy management".
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