No matter if you’re a professional or a once-a-year player, there’s nothing more satisfying in the game of golf than unleashing a long, towering drive down the middle of the fairway. To do this, you need a driver that’s up to the challenge: one that offers the perfect blend of distance, accuracy, forgiveness, sound, and feel. And as most golfers can attest, finding said driver is much easier said than done. 

As a global leader in golf club design and manufacturing for more than 45 years, Cleveland Golf sought to create a driver that gave all players the edge off the tee they needed to shoot their lowest scores. They also wanted to create a driver that stood out from the crowd, one that broke free from the limits of traditional driver geometry. Such was the genesis of their newest driver: the HiBore XL. 

Forging a Vision

The HiBore XL was born from a bold vision. Cleveland Golf’s goal was to rethink the limits of traditional driver design and bring a radically new concept to market. To do so, they knew they needed to leverage cutting-edge simulation-driven design technology that’d allow them to explore thousands of potential designs and optimize shape for a multitude of interdependent design variables. To get the job done and deliver on their vision, they turned to Altair.

To meet their lofty objectives for the HiBore XL, Cleveland Golf team knew they had their work cut out for them. The driver needed to stay within the confines of United States Golf Association (USGA) regulations while offering game improvement players max forgiveness, lots of power, and unmatched sound quality. To do this, the driver needed a large, forgiving clubface, stiff body structure, and optimized weight distribution. The challenge was managing all the complex, interconnected design variables: face size, internal ribs and weighting, mass, center of gravity, moment of inertia (MOI), volume, stiffness, and more. All had to be monitored to assess forgiveness, sound, and USGA compliance. 

On the internal side from a technology standpoint, the team knew they needed to push their technological capabilities beyond what’s possible only using off-the-shelf, standalone tools. They knew design and engineering would have been slow and difficult using traditional CAE methods or physical prototyping. They needed software that combined accuracy, efficiency, and versatility. “We rely on finite element analysis (FEA) tools alongside automation and optimization to accomplish big things with a small team,” said Jacob Lambeth, research engineering supervisor, Cleveland Golf. “For the HiBore XL project, the ability to customize and integrate multiple tools within a single, cohesive workflow was critical.”

Designing a Next-Gen Driver

To bring the HiBore XL to life, Cleveland Golf utilized the Altair® HyperWorks® design and simulation platform. Altair HyperWorks offers users a comprehensive suite of software tools that boast unparalleled interoperability, an open architecture approach, and connected workflows. In other words, it was exactly what the Cleveland Golf team was looking for.

The Altair HyperWorks platform gave the Cleveland Golf team the freedom, flexibility, and expertise it needed to explore the design space and develop a unique, boundary-breaking driver. It also helped Cleveland Golf move beyond the slow, tedious process of modeling one design at a time, allowing them to leverage optimization to direct big and small design decisions simultaneously and engineer a one-of-a-kind driver with optimized geometry, weight distribution, and performance.

More specifically, the Cleveland Golf team used an array of tools within the Altair® HyperWorks® platform. To start, they utilized meshing and modal analysis in Altair® Inspire™, followed by shape refinement using the morphing capabilities of Altair® HyperMesh®. From there, they used Altair® MotionSolve® to tune the clubface’s angle at address and conducted free-size, shape, and topology optimization in Altair® OptiStruct® to meet performance targets. The driver face, featuring variable thickness, was optimized using automated impact simulations in Altair® HyperStudy® and Altair® Radioss®. Finally, they post-processed the results in Altair® Compose® to ensure optimal durability and ball speed.

Beyond the Software: Expert Collaboration and Altair Units

But the collaboration between Cleveland Golf and Altair went beyond the software tools – it also encompassed direct collaboration between the teams’ experts. Working closely together, Cleveland Golf and Altair experts co-created a custom ribbing optimization process centered around OptiStruct. This process helped the Cleveland Golf team find rib configurations that increased the HiBore XL’s stiffness while saving weight. The increased stiffness improved the club’s sound, while the weight savings allowed the team to reposition the club’s mass to improve its center of gravity and MOI. They also used HyperStudy to explore various design trade-offs and connect OptiStruct with other tools, further optimizing the design.

Lastly, Cleveland Golf benefited from the unique Altair Units licensing system. Altair Units empowered Cleveland Golf with flexible access to an extensive software toolkit, enabling broad exploration of design possibilities without needing to worry about traditional cost constraints. This value-driven approach maximized Cleveland Golf’s ROI, empowering their team to explore more designs and freeing them from worry about excessive costs.

From Vision to Reality

Altair HyperWorks helped Cleveland Golf turn a concept into a game-changing reality. With it, Cleveland Golf seamlessly transitioned between various Altair tools, techniques, and optimization processes throughout the product development life cycle, customizing workflows and integrating them with both in-house and third-party solutions. This adaptability empowered the team to use the right tools at the right time and adjust their approach as the HiBore XL’s design evolved. “We pushed our technology to new heights, transforming it from a simple tool into a catalyst for innovation,” said Dustin Brekke, director of engineering, Cleveland Golf.

The results bear out the collaboration’s success. Through Altair’s tools and collaboration with its experts, Cleveland Golf redistributed 5-gram weight savings from the ribs and improved the HiBore XL’s MOI, forgiveness, sound, and feel. Compared to its predecessor, the Launcher XL2, the team increased the HiBore XL’s primary vibration frequency (first mode frequency) by 20% and face size by 19%. Most importantly, the HiBore XL demonstrated sizable performance gains in terms of forgiveness, including a 24% relative reduction in balls impacted partially off the face of the club. By leveraging Altair’s advanced technology, Cleveland Golf improved the HiBore XL’s performance and was empowered to confidently explore bold new design possibilities without compromising delivery schedules.

The HiBore XL is a product that shows how Cleveland Golf, by pushing the boundaries of technology, is reshaping what’s possible in golf club design. More than just a driver, the HiBore XL represents the power of collaborating with an industry-leading technology partner like Altair. “This partnership helped us transform off-the-shelf technology into a tool for rapid exploration, innovation, and creativity, achieving solutions that go beyond standard innovation systems,” Brekke said. By combining Cleveland Golf’s vision with Altair’s technology, domain expertise, and flexible licensing model, the Cleveland Golf team engineered a driver that delivered on their vision and created a club that’s shaping the future of golf, one swing at a time.

Click here to learn more about the collaboration between Cleveland Golf and Altair on the new HiBore XL driver. To learn more about Altair HyperWorks, visit https://altair.com/altair-hyperworks.