US Patent 10272302 Fiber-reinforced composite tubular shafts and manufacture thereof

A sports article comprising an elongate tubular shaft comprised of a fiber-reinforced resin matrix composite material, wherein the elongate tubular shaft has a longitudinal direction and the shaft is multilaminar and includes at least two fibrous layers, each of which is helically wrapped about a wrapping direction extending along the longitudinal direction to form the elongate tubular shaft, wherein each fibrous layer comprises a plurality of oriented structural fibers which are substantially aligned along the longitudinal direction so as to be oriented within +/−10° of the longitudinal direction, the oriented structural fibers having a length, along the longitudinal direction, of less than the length of the elongate tubular shaft to form discontinuous structural fibers serially oriented along the elongate tubular shaft. Also disclosed is a method to produce such a multilaminar elongate tubular shaft.