The Modified Flat Bow
During the 1930's science went to work on bow design.Outstanding men of science, prominent engineers and othersmade separate studies of bow stresses and strains. Separately,they came up with some rather surprising data. It was foundthat the highly stacked cross section of the English long bowwas of the worst possible design. They worked on the correctpremise that a bow has two distinct and opposite strains,stretch and compression.
The belly of a bow is subjected to compression while theback is subjected to stretch. Those portions subjected to thegreatest strains are the extreme outer margins of the back andthe belly. The mass lying between these outer margins is aneutral zone that actually performs no work other than actingas a bridge to hold the back and belly apart but it doesundergo the stress of shear.
