Vibrational characteristics of wood, aluminum, and composite hockey sticks

Abstract

The stick used by ice hockey players consists of a long straight shaft attached to a curved blade. Composite materials have replaced wood and aluminum shafts for the vast majority of current professional and amateur players. The stiffness of the shaft plays a crucial role in the amount of potential energy that can be stored and released during a slap shot. Shafts are available in a wide range of stiffness and flex ratings in order to match player preference. Several wood, aluminum, and composite shafts were tested using a roving hammer experimental modal analysis with and without their blades. Mode shapes of the shaft tested alone were found to be those of a free-free beam. For shafts of similar lengths, aluminum shafts had the highest resonance frequencies and the lowest damping coefficients, while wood shafts had the lowest frequencies and the highest damping. Vibrational characteristics of whole sticks, including one-piece, two-piece sticks (shaft and blade from same material), and hybrid (shaft and blade of different materials) show that the presence of the blade significantly lowers the frequencies of the torsional modes of vibration. These results, especially damping coefficients, suggest reasons for the anecdotally preferred “feel” provided by composite sticks.