Additive Manufacturing of Fins for Surfboards

Surfing is an iconic sport that was born on Hawaii and is extremely popular in coastal regions. Current surfboard fin manufacturers produce high end products using an expensive injection moulding process to create hydro-foil shaped fins. This process, however, does not allow for easy customisation or rapid prototyping.<br/>In this presentation, I will discuss the development and manufacturing of surfboard fins (a hard material) that are fit for purpose.<br/>Our surfboard fins are manufactured layer-by-layer using a combination of fused filament fabrication (FFF) and continuous fiber fabrication (CFF).<br/>Our fins were designed, optimised, and tested using a performance-feedback loop that involved the unique combination of computational fluid dynamics, computer aided design, 3D printing of hard materials, stiffness/flex testing, ocean testing (surfing the waves), embedded sensors / wearables and surfers’ perceptive experiences.