Patent ID: 8337336

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for corresponding a shaft with a specification code, the method comprising: receiving an electrical signal from a stiffness measuring device, the electrical signal representing a bending stiffness profile of the particular shaft, the bending stiffness profile including a measurement of shaft stiffness at each of at least three locations along the shaft; converting each measurement of shaft stiffness into a unitless normalized value relative to a predetermined stiffness scale; ordering the normalized values into a set such that the first normalized value represents the measurement of the shaft stiffness at a location closest to the butt end of the shaft and each subsequent normalized value represents the measurement of the shaft stiffness at locations increasingly further away from the butt end of the shaft wherein the normalization is different for each of the at least three locations of the shaft; associating the set of normalized values to the shaft; and storing the association between the set of normalized values and the shaft.