EADS Bicycle Made of Steel-Strength Nylon

Zothecula writes "Engineers from the Bristol wing of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) have announced the development of the first bicycle using Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) technology. The manufacturing process involves 'growing' the components from a fine nylon powder, similar in concept to 3D printing. Said to be as strong as steel, the end product is claimed to contain only a fraction of the source material used by traditional machining, and the process results in much less waste. It also has the potential to take manufacture to precisely where the component or product is needed, instead of being confined to factories often located a great distance away."

Comments

Video demonstration

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12664422

Re:Video demonstration

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Very interesting, but this kind of manufacturing is still incredibly slow and expensive. This is still proof of concept for consumer items, except for things like costly custom World of Warcraft figures. Several hours of machine time per part is expected, probably overnight for many of them. If you need to charge $1 to $2 a minute on the machine, you can tell costs can add up very quickly. Injection molded parts can be made in seconds, large one half a minute per cycle, Where it is useful is if rapid prototyping or if you only need a few very specific parts made, this process negates the need for an expensive injection mold isn't needed, saving tens of thousands of dollars per mold, and you can get parts made next day rather than waiting four months for the mold to be finished.

Not as strong as steel!

[tagno25]

Hi [redacted],

Can you please send me an email to my work address: [redacted]. I have a number of attachments that you would probably appreciate. Just as an FYI, the bike is purely a demonstration of what you can do with 3D printing, which we call Additive Layer Manufacturing. The bike is 100% nylon plastic which (as opposed to what has been claimed by some news outlets) is strong enough to make a bike, but not as strong as steel! Obviously. The point is that with 3D printing you have almost complete design freedom in manufacturing (unrestricted by machining tools and by the high cost of tooling up in casting). In fact customisation would not add any (or very little) cost to manufactutring. Here is a link to our website & release: http://www.eads.com/eads/int/en/news/press.8d764849-d439-475b-93b3-3cc9a7d2ba20.70472f39-dd6f-4428-a792-91d82cb9791b.html
Hope this helps...
Al

Re:Not as strong as steel!

[Mr. Slippery]

Nylon is made of oil, which is running out. Steel is made of iron, which will never run out.

Nylon is thermoplastic. You can make nylon stuff out of old nylon stuff.

The melting point of nylon is about 220-265 C, depending on the type, while steel melts around 1425 - 1540 C. Seems like it's much easier to recycle nylon than steel.

Re:Looks more like a toy

[gstoddart]

The concept sounds cool until you click the link and see the picture. What a letdown.

Dude, it's kevlar. What's wrong with kevlar?

Re:Looks more like a toy

[Omega2]

It's a kevlar belt, they use them real bicycles as well. Even Trek makes a couple.

Re:Looks more like a toy

[ganktor]

If you had ever ridden a bike with a belt vs a chain, you wouldn't have even commented. They're awesome. So smooth and quiet.

Re:Why didn't they design an awesome bike?

[natehoy]

My commuter bike is configured this way. It has nothing to do with racing, and everything to do with efficiency.

Still, for a "cruiser" bike, you simply make the stem shorter. It's not like you need molds for every possible shape. Measure the rider, and feed the measurements into the computer, and they can come pick up their custom-made bike in an hour, made to their exact specifications.

My only real concern is wearability. The kevlar belt will do OK, no doubt, but what about the crank and other moving parts? What happens when they wear out? Or do you just grind the whole bike (except the wheels) back to powder and make a new one (in which case, awesome recyclability, no pun intended).

Bamboo bicycles are just as strong

[mclearn]

I recently saw a bamboo bicycle and was blown away by the look and feel. A biodegradable frame built out of material known for thousands of years to be highly durable and strong.

Re:Bamboo bicycles are just as strong

[smellsofbikes]

If you're interested in this, there are companies that will walk you through a two-day course in making your own bamboo bicycle. Make Magazine had an article on it recently. Calfee's bamboo bikes ride wonderfully, even the crazy one using actual steerhorns as handlebars I've also gotten to ride a Boo Bicycles frame, and it was lovely. They're flexier than the bikes I'm used to, and there are sometimes issues with homebuilt ones having the bamboo split lengthwise, but the commercial ones are awesome.

Re:Looks more like a toy

[uniquename72]

I've ridden motorcycles with chain drive, belt drive, and shaft drive, and agree with you entirely -- chains suck compared to the others (but shaft is still better, with zero maintenance after 100K miles). Apparently there are also bicycles with shaft drive, but I've never seen one.

Price isn't prohibitive to serious riders

[unassimilatible]

"this kind of manufacturing is still incredibly slow and expensive. This is still proof of concept for consumer items"

Spoken like a non-cyclist. The most lucrative market in bicycles isn't cheap commodity bikes like Schwinns, it's in lightweight road enthusiast and racing bikes. Price isn't the determining factor, which is why bicycle companies can charge thousands for carbon fiber frames.

Besides, if adopted, economy of scale would drop price dramatically. Prototypes are always more expensive than real-world products. CINC machines used to cost millions. Now I know a guy with one in his home's garage - he machines custom CAD-designed copper evaporator heads for phase-change computer cooling units.

No user serviceable parts inside.. for real..

[greywire]

There's one thing about this that nobody seems to be noticing, and that is how good this is from the perspective of companies that want to sell you more product... as opposed to you fixing your product, they'd rather you buy a new one.

Huh?

Did you read the part about how the bearings (I assume these were not made using the same process, but I am sure at some point they would be) are essentially embedded into the structure as it was built up around them? Guess what? That means you are SOL when they wear out.

Products are already manufactured and assembled often going out their way to be difficult to disassemble to discourage repairs (at least by yourself; authorized repairs require special tools, etc). Imagine the future where, these awesome items are cool to look at and cheaper than ever to design, prototype and manufacture and oh by the way they are impossible to repair unless you want to recycle the whole thing because they are built up and around other components in such a way that its not possible to disassemble at all.

Am I proposing there's some conspiracy here? of course not. But its nice and convenient for our throw away society and I am sure somebody's already realized this and is salivating at the thought of non-repairable items.