Willow has been used for nearly 200 years as the main material in the blades of cricket bats, whilst the application of bamboo in sport has declined. In this work, laminated bamboo was characterised to assess if it could be a viable alternative to willow. Bamboo matures much more quickly than willow and is prevalent in countries, such as India, where there is a large interest in cricket. Using bamboo could lead to increased participation in cricket and new products focused around the low-cost production and increased sustainability of cricket bats. Alongside materials testing, finite element modelling was used to understand the properties of a full-scale cricket bat made of laminated bamboo. Working with Garrard & Flack, a cricket bat manufacturing company, a full-size bamboo bat prototype was fabricated. It was found that laminated bamboo could be a suitable alternative to willow due to its higher Modulus of Elasticity, higher coefficient of restitution and larger area of coverage of the ‘sweet-spot’, enabling increased energy transfer from the player to the ball. However, due to its higher density, shape optimisation is required to design a light-weight laminated bamboo bat.

柳树已被用作板球拍刀片的主要材料已有近200年的历史，而竹子在体育运动中的应用却在下降。在这项工作中，层压竹的特点是评估它是否可以替代柳树。竹子的成熟速度比柳树快得多，并且在印度等对板球有浓厚兴趣的国家中很普遍。使用竹子可能会导致更多地参与板球运动，而围绕低成本生产和板球拍的可持续性发展的新产品也将得到发展。除了材料测试外，还使用有限元建模来了解层压竹制全尺寸板球拍的特性。与板球拍制造公司Garrard＆Flack合作，制造了全尺寸的竹棒原型。人们发现，层压竹由于其较高的弹性模量，较高的恢复系数和较大的“甜蜜点”覆盖面积，因此可以替代柳木，从而增加了从球员到球的能量转移。但是，由于密度较高，因此需要设计形状最优化来设计轻质的层压竹棒。