Impact Response Measurement of Bamboo Shinai and CFRP Shinai

Abstract

Bamboo shinai is a practice sword for kendo which is the Japanese traditional fencing. The effectiveness of the shock absorption of the bamboo shinai has been shown in our previous study. Although shinai is usually made of bamboo, it is also made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). The impact response of bamboo shinai and CFRP shinai is compared. As a result, the difference of peak value of impact force between bamboo shinai and CFRP shinai against similar initial velocity is small. Impact response measurement of each shinai has been carried out using the Levitation Mass Method (LMM) which has been proposed by us. In this method, a mass, which is levitated with a pneumatic linear bearing and hence affected by negligible friction, is made to collide with a shinai under test. Because bamboo is natual product, resource of suitable bamboos for shinai is limited. On the other hand, carbon-fiber-reinforced-plastic (CFRP) can be designed to be suitable for a shinai, which has a fixed shock absorption characteristic for an application to the structure of robot arms. Therefore, if the shock absorption characteristic of CFRP shinai is the same as that of bamboo shinai, CFRP shinai is more suitable for the structure of robot arms.