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if this is true, why would Kobe have it in the shoe he wears? Wouldn't he want the best possible shoe?
lunar foam... DISCUSS
- Thread in 'Nike' Thread starter Started by joejoebob2099,
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kobe can wear a new pair every couple of games or even every game, the longevity/durability issue would not affect him at all.
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Good Thinking . . .
Can We Possibly See This In The Future?
Not Bad IMO
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I wonder if it's possible to make a basketball shoes weight only at 10-11 ounces ?
That literally would be like balling on air
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I dunno what all deez fancy words means, but i do knows that these babies is the comfyest pair of shoe eva.
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ditto
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For all of you interested in zoom vs lunar comparison, this is a good visual explaination (..ehm, just visual if you don't read chinese...very good to seethough), 2k4 vs Hyperdunk dissection: http://www.kenlu.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28461
You can note that HD midsole is much more sculpted than 2k4 that also has denser phylon sidewalls for stability...it could be interesting to compare volumesand weights...then uppers are weighted without external heel counters.
Ciaoooo
Peter
You can note that HD midsole is much more sculpted than 2k4 that also has denser phylon sidewalls for stability...it could be interesting to compare volumesand weights...then uppers are weighted without external heel counters.
Ciaoooo
Peter
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i agree with that, lunar foam does have its place
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"Used it"? You suppose NASA will let Nike "use it" without paying for something that they undoubtly patented? Furthermore,you think Nike didn't leverage their own material science bandwidth to study the composition and see if they can transplant the material directly and ifnot, made changes to suit Nike's intended applications? I suppose all that is free to Nike, huh?
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What evidence do we have that lunar is cheaper to produce than zoom? It seems from some earlier posts that Nike may have paid a hefty price to use, test,adapt, and manufacture lunar for large scale shoe production.
*Not saying cost and retail price margin doesn't lean heavily in Nike's favor. *
*Not saying cost and retail price margin doesn't lean heavily in Nike's favor. *
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seems to me nike is getting more "cost efficient". its not just lunar foam. my favorite thing to wear when i play ball are nike dri fit tee's.the full 100% polyester types. before they had the nike logo stitched on the chest. all they do now is print the nike check on it.... after a couple of washesand dry's the logo starts cracking and peeling off. look at the nike logo's on the hyperdunks and zoom kobe 4's. that stuff is just painted onthere. if you played hard for a while and your shoes can get messed up and the logo starts peeling or at least get scratched off.
looks like alot of nike's products are getting the "disposable" treatment to it. use them a couple of times and then throw them away. at leastthats how i feel.
looks like alot of nike's products are getting the "disposable" treatment to it. use them a couple of times and then throw them away. at leastthats how i feel.
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just another marketing ploy by nike.
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A few key things to know:
1. Nike has conducted tests of various lunar foam setups (a core of its own, injected, with a phylon shell, with a phylite shell, etc) against an EVA Phylonfoam core (but not against Zoom Air). They do two tests to quantify cushioning performance. They do drop tests to simulate foot impact on the midsole, which ismeasured in G's. They also do energy loss tests to see whether there is high energy loss (giving a 'dead' feel) or low energy loss (giving a'live' feel). Results show that when augmented with a Phlyon or Phylite shell, the peak impact force are less than that of regular Phylon and theenergy loss is on par with Phylon. This shows lunar foam is on par with Phylon as a midsole material, but with better impact absorption and reduced weight. Thefirst big thing to note is that they didn't test this against Zoom Air, which I would almost guarantee has better impact and energy loss properties. Andsecond, they don't test the longevity or durability.
2. Durability can be seen from physical properties. Nike's patent shows that lunar foam has a compression set % of '60% or less'. (Compression Set- The amount of deformation expressed as a percentage of original dimensions which a material retains after compressive stress is released. ). In comparison,Phylon has a compression set of 50-60%. Polyurethane, less than 30%. Zoom Air? I'd assume practically 0%, it's not a foam. Lunar Foam's compression set looks similar to that of Phylon, which is known as a poor midsole material for long termperformance, when used alone. Papers written on athletic midsole materials point out that long term performance of Phylon is a problem (along with the wasteproduced and inconsistent hardness after remolding.) I'm not surprised by all the complaints of lunar foam bottoming out quickly.
3. Cost. Direct from Nike's website, Zoom Air is "costly to make due to many pieces, and steps." I'm studying Mechanical and MaterialsEngineering and have taken courses in manufacturing processes and engineering materials. It's fairly safe to say that the cost to make "a chunk offoam" is probably less than that of Zoom Air.
Also, lunar foam is a new foam compound patented by Nike. They wouldn't pay NASA any royalties, even if it was derived or based on something NASAdeveloped.
It doesn't seem like long term performance is something they were going for, as you hardly ever see Phylon used alone as their cushioning material inother products. If Nike's goal was to provide sufficient, lightweight, short-term cushioning, they've achieved it. I'd personally take ZoomAir's performance benefits over lunar foam for sure, the reduction in weight and lack of durability is not worth the trade-off.
1. Nike has conducted tests of various lunar foam setups (a core of its own, injected, with a phylon shell, with a phylite shell, etc) against an EVA Phylonfoam core (but not against Zoom Air). They do two tests to quantify cushioning performance. They do drop tests to simulate foot impact on the midsole, which ismeasured in G's. They also do energy loss tests to see whether there is high energy loss (giving a 'dead' feel) or low energy loss (giving a'live' feel). Results show that when augmented with a Phlyon or Phylite shell, the peak impact force are less than that of regular Phylon and theenergy loss is on par with Phylon. This shows lunar foam is on par with Phylon as a midsole material, but with better impact absorption and reduced weight. Thefirst big thing to note is that they didn't test this against Zoom Air, which I would almost guarantee has better impact and energy loss properties. Andsecond, they don't test the longevity or durability.
2. Durability can be seen from physical properties. Nike's patent shows that lunar foam has a compression set % of '60% or less'. (Compression Set- The amount of deformation expressed as a percentage of original dimensions which a material retains after compressive stress is released. ). In comparison,Phylon has a compression set of 50-60%. Polyurethane, less than 30%. Zoom Air? I'd assume practically 0%, it's not a foam. Lunar Foam's compression set looks similar to that of Phylon, which is known as a poor midsole material for long termperformance, when used alone. Papers written on athletic midsole materials point out that long term performance of Phylon is a problem (along with the wasteproduced and inconsistent hardness after remolding.) I'm not surprised by all the complaints of lunar foam bottoming out quickly.
3. Cost. Direct from Nike's website, Zoom Air is "costly to make due to many pieces, and steps." I'm studying Mechanical and MaterialsEngineering and have taken courses in manufacturing processes and engineering materials. It's fairly safe to say that the cost to make "a chunk offoam" is probably less than that of Zoom Air.
Also, lunar foam is a new foam compound patented by Nike. They wouldn't pay NASA any royalties, even if it was derived or based on something NASAdeveloped.
It doesn't seem like long term performance is something they were going for, as you hardly ever see Phylon used alone as their cushioning material inother products. If Nike's goal was to provide sufficient, lightweight, short-term cushioning, they've achieved it. I'd personally take ZoomAir's performance benefits over lunar foam for sure, the reduction in weight and lack of durability is not worth the trade-off.
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interesting thread.
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Nike is always marketing new techs and names to keep things interesting and also to make that money......
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Thanks for some insights as well as an interesting read on the material, Keon.
I'd imagine "lunar foam" and/or "lunarlite foam" is a trademark and a new compound patented by Nike, the compound in which it isderived from (and developed by NASA) may be under another patent under NASA. I do not know the details but I'd like to know if Nike got it for free fromNASA, which is unlikely. Unless of course Nike was involved in its development WITH NASA, in which case (and the only case) Nike could've gotten it forfree as part of the contractual terms. Regardless how it came about, lunar foam definitely represents an investment by Nike, which was my original point.
At the same time, would you happen to have some graphs or info on how fast phylon and lunar foam reach their compression set? The shape of the graph may alsobe interesting and how they reach their compression set may be as relevant as what their compression sets are.
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I have no problems with my HD's or lunartrainers. Love both of them. Zoom Air is great also.
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Hey, good post, Keon... way to drop some actual data into the thread.
You're pretty right on about Zoom Air having essentially no compression set. As long as the nitrogen stays in the Airsole, it's lifespan is almostinfinite. There are ancient (okay, ~30-year-old) shoes in the Nike Archives where the midsoles have essentially disintegrated with age, but the airsolesembedded within are still intact and pressurized!)
I don't have a ton of firsthand experience with Lunar Foam so I can't speak to all of your claims. But I would like to address a couple of things yousaid:
- About testing: the actual testing methods that you describe are pretty accurate. I'm unsure what you meant by "theydon't test the longevity or durability". If you meant that those two test methods don't evaluate longevity or durability, that's true. If you meant Nike didn't test it, that'd be untrue, as there are other ways of evaluating that. And I highly doubt that "they didn'ttest this against Zoom Air". (Where did you hear this from?)
- About the "waste and inconsistent hardness" of Phylon: this is really dependent on the particular way in which the midsole is formed, and thereare several different molding approaches which all have very different pros and cons. I won't bore us all with the details of these, but just know thatthere's a lot more to this, and there are some foam molding techniques that are pretty highly efficient, with good hardness distribution. Older ways, yes,can be fairly wasteful and/or uneven.
- About the cost: unfortunately for Nike, it's not as simple or cheap as just a "chunk of foam". As in most things, there are high-grade(i.e. expensive!) and low-grade (cheap) foams, and what makes sense to use depends on your application. Like carbon-fiber composite: the real material ishigh-performance, and very expensive... it's relatively easy to make a convincing-looking plastic version ("faux" carbon fiber) that'scheaper, but won't perform like it. Or in the lumber store: solid oak vs. particle board. Same thing with Lunar Foam (or Shox foams, for that matter)vs. "regular" EVA or PU foams. I can't get into specifics, but cost-wise Lunar's in the same general ballpark as Zoom, so it's not justa thinly-veiled money grab, as the more cynical contributors to this thread would have it...
I personally just haven't worn much Lunar stuff yet, so I can't really speak to this, but I've heard others say the "feel" or"ride" of Lunar is just different than Zoom...?
(Lest you think I'm a Lunar Foam disciple, blindly defending it: I was an Airsole engineer for nearly seven years!)
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Thanks to both of you guys for dropping the info on the tech side of things...
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Always a pleasure to read your posts jfeezy.
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Actually Lunar foam will decompose under the sun light. So it must be encapsulated in other materials, i.e. phylon.
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Hey jfeezy,
Nice to see anotherenginerd engineer on NT!
I'm no expert on polymers, foams or anyhing.. thanks for the info. My comments about not testing Lunar Foam's longevity or against Zoom Air is justbased on the published patent I read out of interest. It included Peak G and Energy Loss test results but didn't include either of those other things.You're probably right, Nike probably tests these things (I'd definately want to test them). It just wasn't included in the patent.
Nice to see another
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Man, Nike should have called it "Vampire Foam"! (It also can't see itself in the mirror.)
You're exactly correct that Lunar Foam has to be encapsulated within other materials, but I'm not so positive that it's only a sunlightissue. Moisture and even just exposure to plain old air can help break down materials as well. We all see it in our kicks, right, as materials get yellowerand more brittle over time...? UV radiation is one culprit, but it even happens to those that we keep in the box, in the closet. I remember some peopleswearing by using extra desiccant packets to keep their DS kicks fresh, and so on. It may not help, but probably can't hurt.
Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe the best of all possible solutions would be to keep your DS gear 1) in a dark climate-controlled closet, 2) in thosestorage bags they advertise on TV (the kind where you hook up your vacuum hose, to suck out as much air as possible), and 3) with some extra desiccant stuffinside the bag to absorb moisture... maybe I'll have to give that a shot with new kicks I want to keep fresh for years... stay tuned for an update in2015...
(Thanks to wordisbond and jman for the kind words... start a geeky shoe thread and I'll be there!)
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Whoops... hey, Keon, just saw your post after I posted mine.
Thanks for clarifying... I haven't read the patent, but it would make for interesting reading (to a nerd like me). I'll have to look it over.
Patents are funny... in my experience, they're both precise and vague. Precise because obviously you want to patent your idea, but vague because you alsodon't want to publish all of the exact details (since the entire world can review your patent) and you want the patent to be as broad as possible, so thatpeople can't create "copycat" products that are indistinguishable from yours.
One example that comes to mind is Nike's Shox technology... Adidas came out with their A3 stuff, and New Balance has their Zip models. Both are arguablysomewhat similar to Shox, but the details are different enough that (I assume?) they don't infringe on Nike's Shox patents.
Anyway (again, I say this not having read the actual patent yet) my point is that the patent may be fairly broad and general, as technical details go. Andstandard disclaimer: although I work for Nike, I'm speaking for myself, I am not a lawyer, etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda.
Thanks for clarifying... I haven't read the patent, but it would make for interesting reading (to a nerd like me). I'll have to look it over.
Patents are funny... in my experience, they're both precise and vague. Precise because obviously you want to patent your idea, but vague because you alsodon't want to publish all of the exact details (since the entire world can review your patent) and you want the patent to be as broad as possible, so thatpeople can't create "copycat" products that are indistinguishable from yours.
One example that comes to mind is Nike's Shox technology... Adidas came out with their A3 stuff, and New Balance has their Zip models. Both are arguablysomewhat similar to Shox, but the details are different enough that (I assume?) they don't infringe on Nike's Shox patents.
Anyway (again, I say this not having read the actual patent yet) my point is that the patent may be fairly broad and general, as technical details go. Andstandard disclaimer: although I work for Nike, I'm speaking for myself, I am not a lawyer, etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda.
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jfeezy you are my hero
love the geeky threads, keep them coming
love the geeky threads, keep them coming
