The bicycle industry - especially the high performance sector is growing and their development of lighter, stronger and simply better parts is not stopping. Using Laser Powder Bed Fusion a whole new way of producing bike parts is opened. Making good parts even better with metal 3D printing is easy and could be the next step in this industry sector.
Bike parts were designed for additive manufacturing and printed with LPBF. This example demonstrates the designing, printing and testing of metal printed bike parts. The goal was to develop higher performances by optimizing hydraulic bike brakes and components with the idea of serial production in mind. With serial production in mind, costs per part are a key element to develop robust bike components that are only possible through metal 3D printing.
What could be better than bringing metal 3D printing to daily used objects like a bicycle?
Learning Objectives:
- Assess the possibilities of LPBF in the field of bicycle production and rethink the limits for bike part performances.
- Understand the possibility to produce titanium parts cheaper than alumium
- Understand how the developing process for customer related products looks like including designing, printing and testing.
