NTU Partnership to Develop High-Tech Sports Equipment

NTU partnership will produce state of the art sports equipment to create product demand and enhance sports scene here.

By Jo-ann Quah

RESEARCH IN MOTION: Earlier this June, Bronx Creative and Design Centre Strategy Director Thomas Ng (left) and Institute for Sports Research Director Pascal Joubert des Ouches (right) signed an agreement to open the joint Footwear Material Development Laboratory. The laboratory will allow both parties to develop new and innovative footwear components.
PHOTO: Bronx Creative & Design Centre

NTU has partnered an international association to develop new, advanced sports equipment which will boost the local sports scene and develop a market for such products.

“NTU’s top scientific talents will partner the industry’s leading engineers to develop novel high-tech sports equipment, footwear and apparels.

“Such application-driven research will contribute to the growing local sports scene and help create a new business sector for Singapore,” explained NTU Provost Freddy Boey in a statement.

The new association — named Innovative Composites for Sports Products (I-Comp Sports) — will make use of NTU’s Institute for Sports Research (ISR) facilities to develop new sporting materials, equipment design, and manufacturing technology for sports products such as racquets and bicycle frames.

This research and development conducted will also benefit other industries which make use of composite materials in their manufacturing processes. Composite materials are the building blocks in the development of superior materials.

These superior materials, used in the manufacture of smartphones, Formula One race cars, aircrafts and many other products are formed by combining two or more different composites.

I-Comp Sports is made up of three French companies — Arkema, Chomarat, and Babolat — and Taiwanese bicycle manufacturer Topkey. Arkema and Chomarat both produce composite materials for the transportation industry while Babolat produces sporting goods such as racquets for professional tennis players.

“The fact that we have four prestigious founding partners in I-Comp Sports shows their confidence in NTU’s track record in developing innovative solutions for industry applications,” said ISR Director Pascal Joubert des Ouches.

NTU also plans to invest S$3 million into specialised machinery that will use an advanced method, known as automated fibre placement, to manufacture composite materials.

This technology increases the rate and precision of the production of advanced composite parts. Automated fiber placement can also be used to manufacture complex composite materials which cannot be produced by any other methods.

In addition to collaborating with multinational companies, ISR has partnered with international sports federations in the past.

It is currently working with the International Table Tennis Federation and the Badminton World Federation on a prototype machine to test the bounce of table tennis racquets and shuttlecock development respectively.