The most accurate football of all times is made with the aid of Bayer polyurethane

The Fevernova™ from adidas: Official ball for Soccer World Cup 2002

22-Apr-2002

Leverkusen –The Soccer World Cup 2002 will be an enormous event for billions of people throughout the world. World Cup fever induced adidas to get together with Bayer's coatings and Colorants Business Group to develop a revolutionary new ball – the adidas Fevernova™.

It is more accurate and faster than any other previous ball and allows a more effective conversion of energy than any other adidas ball ever tested.

Bayer introduced the ball to trade visitors at the Asia Pacific Leather Fair from April 9 – 12, 2002, in Hong Kong.

The major innovation with the new official ball is the revolutionary syntactic foam based on Bayer's Impranil® polyurethane, making the ball an advancement on the Tricolore ball used at the World Cup in France in 1998. The improved syntactic foam consists of equal sized, highly elastic, exceptionally resistant gas-filled microcells. As a result, it can convert the applied energy evenly at every point and give the ball additional damping properties at the same time. This, in turn, makes for more effective play and a more precise, calculable flight of the ball.

The syntactic foam is embedded in a composite consisting of several polyurethane layers, applied to a woven fabric. The outer layer of the ball is made of a particularly abrasion- resistant variant of Impranil® polyurethane so that the ball can withstand exceptionally tough treatment. At the same time, the material can be easily printed on, allowing plenty of scope for modern designs.

The first layer of the polyurethane composite is printed with the basic Fevernova™ pattern, giving the ball its sophisticated, behind-glass effect and protecting the printed pattern permanently from abrasion. This is followed by two more coats of polyurethane, also based on Impranil®, and below these the syntactic foam. The cured foam composite has good low- temperature flexibility, is abrasion-resistant, lightfast and elastic.

Equipped with a cover of this kind, the ball can withstand even the toughest of conditions during a football game. Comprehensive tests with the robot leg in the adidas Global Training Center and with world-class players like David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane have also proved that the adidas Fevernova™ exceeds all FIFA standards with its revolutionary ball concept, and is indeed the most accurate adidas soccer ball of all times.

Other news from the department research and development

Most read news

More news from our other portals

Discover the latest developments in battery technology!