In collaboration with our producer of carbon frames (Carbotec Ind. Ltd.), our aim already for the year 2010 has been to ensure that carbon frames are designed to provide the best results in performance, weight, comfort as well as appearance and profiling. Another task was to ensure steady and reliable production of quality that would guarantee accord between the final products and the original design and expectations. To meet our objectives, we have implemented numerous new production and software technologies, into the production of carbon frame for the model collection AUTHOR since 2010. These include:
- HTR – High Toughness Resin
- EPS – Ethyl Poly Styrene
- TPM – Thermo Plastic Mesh
- FEA – Finite Element Analysis
High Toughness Resin (HTR)
The HTR is an exclusive material, produced in collaboration with one of the most advanced carbon fibre manufacturers. The technology reflects the modern-day market requirements placed on carbon bicycle frames and enables the development of high-quality products with a desirable low weight to high rigidity and strength ratio. HTR helps us to decrease the weight of our road bicycle frames for 120 g and a new MTB hard tail frame by 250 g compared to their recent counterparts.
Implementation of this high-toughness resin supplement into our carbon portfolio brings the following advantages:
- 10 to 15% decrease in weight while maintaining frame strength and rigidity
- up to 20% increase in frame resistance to impact
Ethyl Poly Styrene (EPS)
Using this thermoplastic material – a styrene polymer – inside frame joints enables us to produce more stable and consistent products of the highest quality. EPS is inserted into these joints as a template for the frame, used before the subsequent finish of the frame. The nodes have been identified as the sites of potential fissures in the frame. That is why also call this technology an “anti-wrinkle system”. The polystyrene templates are subsequently covered with layers of carbon-based material. The single-use EPS templates are removed from the frame after hot-treatment. The best results are achieved from combined use of EPS and another technology: TPM.
Benefits of EPS:
- decrease in stress concentrations in inner layers of the frame
- greater dimensional stability of the frame and smoother inner layers in frame joints
- solid base (template) for inner frame layers before application of subsequent layers (lay-up)
Thermo Plastic Mesh – (TPM)
Another example of thermoplastic material (mesh) use, in this instance in order to disperse stress forces in inner frame layers. This technology has been developed as an ideal complement to EPS. The primary objective is to smooth out the inner frame layers, which are the potential sites of small fissures and cracks.
Thermoplastic mesh qualities::
- prevention of formation and/or propagation of fissures
- increased rigidity of the whole frame structure and resistance to cracks due to an internal barrier protecting the inner layers
Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
The finite element analysis is a numerical method used for simulation of stress and deformation curves for a physical model. The principle of the method is in substitution of continuous curve with discrete (finite number of) elements, with parameters defined for specific nodes, or surfaces. In our case, the bicycle frame as the stressed model is replaced with separate surfaces into which the calculation is divided for purposes of simplification.
Image bottom right (separation of a frame head tube into surfaces). FEA is used in particular to check completed designs of equipment or structures or to determine the critical (most stressed) points of a structure. Although the principles of the method have been around for some time, it has come to enjoy broader utilisation only with the advent of modern computers.
