Full customisation, quick performance estimation and optimisation of parametric snowboard design
Creators: name: Lee, Ka Wai
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: Current snowboard design relies heavily on riding experience and personal riding style of the board designers along with feedback from professional snow board riders. Snowboard companies are spending huge amounts of money and time on this unproductive trial and error method of design. As a result, consumers' choices are limited to the fixed sizes, shapes and structural designs offered by snowboard companies. <br><br>Snow board enthusiasts seek for an optimal board design using a 'Do-it-yourself' approach. However, sophisticated snowboard design requires a certain level of engineering Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawing and mathematical skill, including complex structural analysis of fabric composites and core materials; and bending and torsional stiffness distribution estimation. Therefore, an advanced design platform is desirable to enable users without engineering backgrounds to design and fully customise their own snowboard. <br><br>This research is aimed at providing snowboard riders and designers an optimisation and customisation tool for snowboard design. Rather than maximising the performance parameters of a board in every aspect, the optimisation tool provides a solution to optimise the feel of the board to best fit individual use. This greatly reduces the time and cost for riders and even snowboard manufacturers to design a new board and avoid the inefficient trial and error method. Current research employed Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) method and Multiple Objective Simulated Annealing (MOSA) to perform the optimisation tasks and to verify the solutions with each other. The optimisation tasks were implemented through Matlab® and modeFRONTIER®. Based on the results of three case studies, it was found that both optimisation solvers generated similar results on the snowboard performances with different design parameters. <br><br>The research results were validated with the assistance of two snowboard experts. A Freestyle board and an All-Mountain board were chosen and tested on snow. The experts reviewed and rated the performances/feel of the snowboards based on their riding experience. The obtained data were used to compare with the results generated from the model that developed in this research. The area of validation induded thickness distribution estimation, stiffness distribution estimation, snowboard performance prediction and snowboard design optimisation. <br><br>This research also developed an advanced interactive parametric design platform which allows user to fully customise and personalise a snowboard in a 3D virtual environment without any engineering CAD drawing skills, mathematical modelling skills and arduous structural calculations. This design platform offers instant feedback on the snow board performance based on the on-snow performance prediction model obtained from the RMIT snowboard research group. <br><br>The parametric snowboard design platform contains a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for users to design and personalise their own board by simply altering the geometry and appearance of the virtual board and therefore parametric model. Furthermore, it offers professional riders, snowboard enthusiasts or experienced snowboard designers to 'fine tune' the snowboard's performance and structural behaviour manually by modifying core materials properties and design parameters of the fabric composite layers of the board. By doing so, an optimal snowboard design can be created so that performance best suits individual use.