Method of golf ball manufacture employing ultrasonic welding, and resulting golf ball and golf ball components and/or layers
AssigneesMasion de Golf, Qingdao Sm Parker Golf Co., Ltd
InventorsHyun Jin Kim, Ki Jung Kim
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A golf ball a core, one or more intermediate layers, and one or more cover layers. The core may comprise an inner portion and an outer portion. One or more layers of the golf ball may be formed by the application of ultrasonic welding on two half shells to form. One or more of the layers may be formed by a number of different chemical compositions, and may have varying thicknesses, hardnesses, coefficients of restitution, and PGA compression. The golf ball itself may have varying coefficient of restitution and PGA compression, depending on the layers.
Claims23
A method of producing a golf ball, the golf ball comprising at least one core, at least one intermediate layer around the at least one core, and at least one cover layer, the method comprising fusing half shells positioned around the at least one core by an ultrasonic welding process to form the at least one intermediate layer around the at least one core;
- and injection molding or compression molding the at least one cover layer to provide dimples thereon, wherein the cover layer comprises one or more materials selected from the group consisting of thermoplastic resin, thermoset elastomer, thermoplastic elastomer, unsaturated polymer, and any combination of those;
- a melting temperature or softening temperature of the at least one cover layer is in a range from 40° C. to 350° C., a Shore D hardness H of the at least one intermediate layer is in the range of 20≤H≤90;
- a Shore D hardness Hc of the at least one cover layer is in the range of 20≤HC≤80;
- a thickness T of the at least one or more intermediate layers is in a range of 0.003 inch≤T≤0.25;
- a thickness Tc of the at least one cover layer is in a range of 0.003 inch≤Tc≤0.25 inch;
- a PGA compression C of the golf ball is in a range of 40≤C≤100;
- and a C.O.R. (Coefficient of Restitution) of the golf ball is greater than 0.780.
A method of producing a golf ball, the golf ball comprising a core, at least one intermediate layer formed by injection molding or compression molding, and at least one cover layer around the at least one intermediate layer, the method comprising forming the at least one cover layer by fusing half shells positioned around the at least one intermediate layer by ultrasonic welding and compression molding the fused half shells to provide dimples on the at least one cover layer, wherein the at least one cover layer comprises one or more of thermoplastic resin, thermoset elastomer, thermoplastic elastomer, ionomer, polyurethane, polyurethane urea, and unsaturated polymer;
- a melting temperature or softening temperature of the cover layer is in a range from 40° C. to 350° C., a Shore D hardness H of the at least one intermediate layer is in the range of 20≤H≤90;
- a Shore D hardness Hc of the at least one cover layer is in the range of 20≤H≤80;
- a thickness T of the at least one or more intermediate layers is in a range of 0.003 inch≤T≤0.25 inch;
- a thickness Tc of the at least one cover layer is in a range of 0.003 inch≤Tc≤0.25 inch;
- a PGA compression C of the golf ball is in a range of 40≤C≤100;
- and a C.O.R. (Coefficient of Restitution) of the golf ball is greater than 0.780.
A method of producing a golf ball, the golf ball comprising at least one core, at least one intermediate layer, and at least one cover layer around the at least one intermediate layer, the method comprising fusing half shells positioned around the at least one intermediate layer by an ultrasonic welding process to form the at least one cover layer around the at least one intermediate layer;
- and compression molding the at least one cover layer to provide dimples thereon, wherein the cover layer comprises one or more materials selected from the group consisting of thermoplastic resin, thermoset elastomer, thermoplastic elastomer, unsaturated polymer, and any combination of those;
- a Shore D hardness H of the at least one intermediate layer is in the range of 20≤H≤90;
- a Shore D hardness Hc of the at least one cover layer is in the range of 20≤≤80;
- a thickness T of the at least one cover layer is in a range of 0.003 inch≤Tc≤0.25 inch;
- a PGA compression C of the golf ball is in a range of 40≤C≤100;
- and a C.O.R. (Coefficient of Restitution) of the golf ball is greater than 0.780.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.