Can rubbers achieve even more catapult than currently?

[Amayzde]

Do you think ESN or Butterfly or Daiki rubbers can achieve even higher amounts of catapult in the future? or are they already at their physical limits?

As an engineer I can tell you there is no limit in what can be achieved in terms of catapult and speed. Everything continuously improves with small margins. However, there is no need for it in the current state of the game.

Ever since the glue ban, manufacturers needed to find a way to bring the speed back into the rubbers. This was when the Tensor Rubber was born. A rubber with a 'build-in speedglue effect'.
The sponges of these rubbers were also more springy, dense and heavy, so they needed to change the balance in the blades to make setups with these rubbers not too head-heavy.

Then the plastic ball came. Quite a bit of speed and spin was lost. Manufacterers started to create rubbers with thinner topsheets which allowed to create rubbers with thicker sponges for more speed.
Eventually manufacterers progressively made the sponges of rubbers harder, and the topsheets softer. This created more linear (so less catapult) rubbers that are more suited to the modern counter-topspin play on pro-level.

Then in 2020 came the created hybrid rubbers. A rubber with a tensor sponge and a tacky topsheet. Those were designed to get that extra edge in the short game that the Chinese always seemed to have with their tacky forehand rubbers. And it also allows you to attack the first ball with more power because you can hit more through the spin of the opponent rather then having to overcome it.

Will rubbers achieve any new breakthrough in the future?

This is a question that I am also eager to find out. I consider Tenergy, Dignics and Dignics 09C as breakthrough rubbers. Butterfly has been setting the benchmark with these rubbers for decades now, and I wonder what they are up to next.

I can imagine there being a problem with sustainability around manufactering rubbers in the future. That surtain materials might get banned, just like with the celluloid ball. Not the breakthrough we want, but affraid we might eventually get.

 

[Wakkibatty]

For whatever it's worth, I think the answer is "Rubbers can't get much faster in isolation no -- but if they were developed from the ground up to be teamed with a particular specific blade or genus of outer wood, then yes".

Extra springy, low-density woods like hinoki, cypress, gabon/okoume, western red cedar, etc are already known to boost the performance of mid-tier rubbers with a softer, springy (typically non-tacky) top-sheet and mid-soft tensor sponge.

In such cases the rubber and blade rebound at roughly the same speed, which creates lots of 'blade effect' or popping catapault, which provides a massive spin and speed boost -- get the combo just right and it feels like you've either boosted the rubber, or just added on another 1.5mm of sponge.

I once fitted a 2.0mm Joola Energy Xtra Green Power to an extra springy one-ply as a backhand rubber, and put a regular max thickness red Tenergy 05 on the other side. The speed and spin difference between the two was virtually non-existent, which is a crazy outcome really, given the price and performance difference these rubbers would have on a regular carbon blade.

Frankly it makes me wonder why the majors aren't putting more research and energy into developing blades and rubbers together. I admit engineering this kind of teaming with a new blade and rubber combo would be extraordinarily difficult, given the enormous variation that naturally occurs in all wood.

That said, its ultimately just another engineering problem at its core, and the mechanics involved are already pretty well understood, so its not like you're starting the whole thing from scratch. eg: you could possibly negate a lot of the density variation by using vertical grain -- this works beautifully at negating many of the density problems in balsa, and end-grain balsa blades absolutely rock in my opinion.

If I had to guess, it's probably an economics & marketing issue, rather than an engineering one.

When you can already achieve obscene profit margins on a blade just by sticking the latest synthetic composite fibre blend next to the core, trying to manufacture a new & highly-efficient mechanical spring by mounting novel elastomers onto a treated cellulose platform is a far less desirable proposition.

 

[TensorBackhand]

As an engineer I can tell you there is no limit in what can be achieved in terms of catapult and speed. Everything continuously improves with small margins. However, there is no need for it in the current state of the game.

Ever since the glue ban, manufacturers needed to find a way to bring the speed back into the rubbers. This was when the Tensor Rubber was born. A rubber with a 'build-in speedglue effect'.
The sponges of these rubbers were also more springy, dense and heavy, so they needed to change the balance in the blades to make setups with these rubbers not too head-heavy.

Then the plastic ball came. Quite a bit of speed and spin was lost. Manufacterers started to create rubbers with thinner topsheets which allowed to create rubbers with thicker sponges for more speed.
Eventually manufacterers progressively made the sponges of rubbers harder, and the topsheets softer. This created more linear (so less catapult) rubbers that are more suited to the modern counter-topspin play on pro-level.

Then in 2020 came the created hybrid rubbers. A rubber with a tensor sponge and a tacky topsheet. Those were designed to get that extra edge in the short game that the Chinese always seemed to have with their tacky forehand rubbers. And it also allows you to attack the first ball with more power because you can hit more through the spin of the opponent rather then having to overcome it.


This is a question that I am also eager to find out. I consider Tenergy, Dignics and Dignics 09C as breakthrough rubbers. Butterfly has been setting the benchmark with these rubbers for decades now, and I wonder what they are up to next.

I can imagine there being a problem with sustainability around manufactering rubbers in the future. That surtain materials might get banned, just like with the celluloid ball. Not the breakthrough we want, but affraid we might eventually get.

This response makes a lot of sense to me.

So do all 50d and 53d tensors have softer topsheet? V22, V20, Rakza XX, Genextion, etc?

What I really want is a tensor rubber that is specifically designed for a strong reaction to booster. The closest thing I have found for this is Aurora Max. But I would love to see ESN produce something like that.

 

[zeio]

Okay, I understand what you're saying now. You're saying that each brand's "flagship" rubber today has higher performance potential than their flagship rubber did 10 years ago.

In that case, I agree. Certainly in the case of Euro./Japanese rubbers that's true, though I'm not sure if the same could be said of H3?

H3 has always had the highest potential with the brick sponge from the get-go. Nothing comes close to its quirky trajectory, to this day. Butterfly has even said tacky rubber is difficult to develop and mass-produce. The head designer of the new Triple series even stated he wanted both topsheet and sponge made in China and limited experimental data show that Triple DE matches D09C and Rakza Z EH. So the fact that H3 stays relatively the same over the past decade means that it still has a unique edge that is not reproducible by others.

 

[zeio]

Yes, this is basically my point. 10 years ago, i dont think anybody made 50d and 53d tensors.

So the old G1 from 2010 is largely the same as new rubbers like ACC.

Even a lot of pros are still using rubbers from this 2010 generation. Mima uses G1, Hayata and CXT use Tenergy, Jorkic uses MXP.

So I just wonder if rubbers within their own caregory (tensors, hard tensors, hybrids) can actually achieve any new breakthroughs.

For ESN, the answer is no, they can't, without resorting to increasing the hardness and, along with it, weight. A major factor often overlooked is that T05, Rozena and D05 all weigh roughly ~70g, several grams lighter despite coming in a bigger sheet than comparable ESN offerings. Butterfly has managed to turn up the hardness without increasing the weight, a technological gap that ESN has not closed (but actually widened) after 16 years.

 

[ben1229]

we are comfortable driving a Honda Ford but sometimes it feels good to try a Lamborghini once

I tried , and too hard to control.

 

[longle]

I tried , and too hard to control.

yeah at least trying fast rubbers is safe because it won't crash

 

[lodro]

yeah at least trying fast rubbers is safe because it won't crash

and much much cheaper too, mine was Miura

 

[brokenball]

As an engineer I can tell you there is no limit in what can be achieved in terms of catapult and speed. Everything continuously improves with small margins. However, there is no need for it in the current state of the game.

What kind of engineer?
As an engineer you should know there is a limit to the coefficient of restitution. COR..
There is a limit on what the coefficient of restitution can be.
What improves is the marketing to all the suckers.

Igorponger is right about testing the balls by dropping them on anvil. The ITTF test is dropping the ball on a steel plate from 30.5 cm and looiking at the rebound.
see the part about sports equipment

Coefficient of restitution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is the upper limit of COR because the steel doesn't absorb any energy. Just the ball.
However, the COR is dependent on the elasticity of the two materials colliding and since TT rubber absorb energy and return a fraction the total COR will be less that that of the TT ball alone.

Ever since the glue ban, manufacturers needed to find a way to bring the speed back into the rubbers. This was when the Tensor Rubber was born. A rubber with a 'build-in speedglue effect'.
The sponges of these rubbers were also more springy, dense and heavy, so they needed to change the balance in the blades to make setups with these rubbers not too head-heavy.

How does dense rubber make it more springy?
What if we made the tires on your car more dense?
Would that make your car tires more springy.
You need to simulate a mass hitting another mass attached to a spring. The spring ( rubber ) has mass and damping. After doing this you will see that increasing the mass of the spring/rubber is detrimental to the speed after impact.

Then the plastic ball came. Quite a bit of speed and spin was lost. Manufacterers started to create rubbers with thinner topsheets which allowed to create rubbers with thicker sponges for more speed.

The mass and radius of the ball changed only a little.
The ball still needed to bounce off the steel plate the same. However, there is a problem with the ITTF's specification. It applies to only one speed that is achieved after dropping from 30.5 cm. What about 60 cm?

Eventually manufacterers progressively made the sponges of rubbers harder, and the topsheets softer. This created more linear (so less catapult) rubbers that are more suited to the modern counter-topspin play on pro-level.

Show me an equation where hard and soft is used to compute the COR.
How does more linear result is less 'catapult'. ?

Then in 2020 came the created hybrid rubbers. A rubber with a tensor sponge and a tacky topsheet.

What is a tensor sponge? It is just a trade name. Butterfly already used spring sponge.

Those were designed to get that extra edge in the short game that the Chinese always seemed to have with their tacky forehand rubbers. And it also allows you to attack the first ball with more power because you can hit more through the spin of the opponent rather then having to overcome it.

What is hitting through the spin??

This is a question that I am also eager to find out. I consider Tenergy, Dignics and Dignics 09C as breakthrough rubbers. Butterfly has been setting the benchmark with these rubbers for decades now, and I wonder what they are up to next.

What benchmark? The manufacturers don't want a benchmark because then we can see that the new rubbers aren't that much different from the old rubbers.

I can imagine there being a problem with sustainability around manufactering rubbers in the future. That surtain materials might get banned, just like with the celluloid ball. Not the breakthrough we want, but affraid we might eventually get.

Why a ban? There is a limit to the COR.

 

[Jimbob MacInbred]

Then in 2020 came the created hybrid rubbers. A rubber with a tensor sponge and a tacky topsheet.

I'm certain that some ESN-Hybrids were available well before 2020. Xiom Tau, Xiom Vega China, Joola Golden Tango and Tibhar K1 come to mind.

What is a tensor sponge? It is just a trade name. Butterfly already used spring sponge.

Tensor is not only a trademarked name by ESN (in relation to tt). ESN essentially uses the term in order to illustrate what happens to the sponge (and topsheet). Sponge and topsheet are literally under tension (derived from the latin word "tendere"). I think you (being an engineer on top of it) and most of the tt players know that.

Also I'm not sure if your "timeline" in that regard is correct. ESN released their first tensor rubber back in 1998, while Butterfly at the time had only developed a high-tension-topsheet for the Bryce (which had a classical sponge). The first "spring sponge" for the Tenergys however was released much later in 2008. In short: When ESN released their first tensor, no spring sponge was available.
Butterfly of course overtook ESN with the spring sponge (plus their corresponding topsheets) fairly easily performance-wise, although their technologies are quite similiar...

 

[igorponger]

THE PERFECT BOUNCY MATERIAL FOR RACKET COVERINGS BORN IN AMERICA AGES AGO.

Super Ball or Superball is a toy bouncy ball based on a type of synthetic rubber invented in 1964 by chemist Norman Stingley. It is an extremely elastic ball made of Zectron,[1] which contains the synthetic polymer polybutadiene as well as hydrated silica, zinc oxide, stearic acid, and other ingredients.[2] This compound is vulcanized with sulfur at a temperature of 165 °C (329 °F) and formed at a pressure of 3,500 psi (24 MPa). The resulting Super Ball has a very high coefficient of restitution,[3][4][5] and if dropped from shoulder level on a hard surface, a Super Ball bounces nearly all the way back; thrown down onto a hard surface by an average adult, it can fly over a three-story building.

A reputable China factory is known to have adopted Stigley's "magic" formulas as it is, with only slight modification. (dont ask me names, please).

 

[brokenball]

Tensor is not only a trademarked name by ESN (in relation to tt). ESN essentially uses the term in order to illustrate what happens to the sponge (and topsheet). Sponge and topsheet are literally under tension (derived from the latin word "tendere"). I think you (being an engineer on top of it) and most of the tt players know that

I know that. Tensor is also a mathematical term.
How much tension? So what hold the rubber and top sheet in tension? Show me a formula for the speed after impact that depends on tension. You can't. Tensor is just a name. The only time the top sheet is in tension is when it is putting spin on the ball with a tangential motion.

.

Also I'm not sure if your "timeline" in that regard is correct. ESN released their first tensor rubber back in 1998, while Butterfly at the time had only developed a high-tension-topsheet for the Bryce (which had a classical sponge). The first "spring sponge" for the Tenergys however was released much later in 2008. In short: When ESN released their first tensor, no spring sponge was available.
Butterfly of course overtook ESN with the spring sponge (plus their corresponding topsheets) fairly easily performance-wise, although their technologies are quite similiar...

Tensor is just a name. Spring sponge is just a springier sponge. The trick to making a springy sponge is is have lots of air pockets of a consistently relatively big size with out having the bubble joint together to make big voids. It is the aid in the air pockets that are springy.