Designing a badminton shuttlecock; validation of virtual design by 3D printed thin-walled functional prototype

Abstract

This paper focuses on the additive manufacturing of a prototype badminton shuttlecock skirt that was designed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The fabricated prototype weighs 3.81 g and has wall thickness of between 0.5 mm to 0.65 mm. The prototype was tested functionally in the wind tunnel to validate the numerical results. CFD and wind tunnel testing was also applied to a reference feather shuttlecock for validating the flow simulation framework. Experimental and numerical results of the feather shuttlecocks showed good agreement. While the high speed testing of the prototype showed skirt deformation, the low speed results of the prototype demonstrate the feasibility of functional prototyping through additive manufacturing.