Published: Just now
Thousands of broken hockey sticks that are thrown away every year are a waste of resources. This is the opinion of researchers at Luleå University of Technology, who will now investigate the possibility of reusing the material for more crash-proof cars, according to a press release.
“We want to investigate whether the remains from the club can be used as building blocks in new structures. Above all, we want to investigate whether segments of the clubs can be used to capture energy in connection with vehicle collisions,” says Patrik Fernberg, professor of polymeric composite materials at Luleå University of Technology, in the press release.
According to him, today’s hockey sticks are technological marvels. But the problem is that the load that the sticks are subjected to is very high, which means that they break quite often – and then they become useless to the hockey player, even though large parts of the stick are still intact.
Initially, the researchers will now carry out an inventory of how different individual clubs can differ and how much energy is required to crush them.
“For a vehicle manufacturer, reusing scrapped clubs can mean that the cost of materials is reduced but also the weight of the vehicle, which is positive for fuel consumption, range and climate footprint,” says Patrik Fernberg in the press release.