LIQUID METAL.... the next material in bike technology?

[BATMANs]

www.liquidmetal.com

Reminds me of Terminator T1000.

They use it in tennis rackets, baseball bats, MP3 players, etc..

I was at a local custom bike show and one of the guys at the booths said that he heard that some guy in southern Cal. was looking at using this material for fabricating bike frames since it's weight to strength properties may lend itself to building aerodynamic time-trials frames that are as light or perhaps lighter than the lightest titanium frame by Litespeed.

Best of both worlds.

 

[Insight Driver]

www.liquidmetal.com

Reminds me of Terminator T1000.

They use it in tennis rackets, baseball bats, MP3 players, etc..

I was at a local custom bike show and one of the guys at the booths said that he heard that some guy in southern Cal. was looking at using this material for fabricating bike frames since it's weight to strength properties may lend itself to building aerodynamic time-trials frames that are as light or perhaps lighter than the lightest titanium frame by Litespeed.

Best of both worlds.

You have bought into marketing hype, my friend. First thing you should do is to educate yourself on the properties of materials used in bicycles. http://www2.sjsu.edu/orgs/asmtms/artcle/articl.htm
Then you should look at the specific characteristics of this simple amorphous alloy. It is still density-challenged ( As Scott Nichol has said it). The process is critical, the alloying elements are expensive. This site does not give the density. This site does not give you the Modulus of elastsicity nor yeild strength. This site only gives the ultimate strength which, by itself, and made clear by reading about mettallurgy for cyclists, that it is so much hype of one specification with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

You can learn more about the metals and how they are formed and the precise and difficult processes that must be followed to make these metals into products by reading one of the press releases the company has posted:
http://www.liquidmetal.com/news/AdvMatProcess.pdf

In further reading you learn that one of the major problems that must be overcome is that the earlier alloys were brittle, like glass. That is the downfall of a lot of very strong materials and a lot of very tough steel alloys. You don't want a brittle failure. So, assuming there is an alloy that can be shaped into bicycle tubes they likely will be very expensive frames and the weight benefit may not be much at all due to the density of the materials that are alloyed together.

 

[mises]

When it was tried in golf clubs the shafts were prone to shatter like glass. Not a good property in a bike frame. But used as a matrix for nanotube fibers it might be worth pursuing in 5 years.

 

[TWOPBikeGuy]

When it was tried in golf clubs the shafts were prone to shatter like glass. Not a good property in a bike frame. But used as a matrix for nanotube fibers it might be worth pursuing in 5 years.

Wait I know, TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM! Its coming! Youll see!

 

[artmichalek]

When it was tried in golf clubs the shafts were prone to shatter like glass. Not a good property in a bike frame. But used as a matrix for nanotube fibers it might be worth pursuing in 5 years.

Putting brittle fibers in a brittle matrix isn't a terribly great idea either, but if they slip the word "nano" into the add copy enough times people will buy it anyway.

 

[artmichalek]

This site only gives the ultimate strength which, by itself, and made clear by reading about mettallurgy for cyclists, that it is so much hype of one specification with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Also note that their comparisson of ultimate tensile strength to other materials only uses properties for castings. Which is perfectly reasonable because they're marketing this material for near-net fabrication of complex parts where casting is the alternative. If they were to put the UTS up next to drawn and heat treated tubing it would still be higher, but not nearly enough to make up for the high density.

 

[fish156]

Wait I know, TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM! Its coming! Youll see!

Wait a minute ...... Hey, maybe YOU are the guy that invents it! ;-)))

 

[Insight Driver]

When it was tried in golf clubs the shafts were prone to shatter like glass. Not a good property in a bike frame. But used as a matrix for nanotube fibers it might be worth pursuing in 5 years.

Posts like this help spark debate. The alloys used in bike tubes are of a different formula and are not as brittle as the alloy used in the golf club. It is true, though, that the material used in the clubs would not make a good bicycle tube because it is too brittle.

 

[BATMANs]

A golf club deals with a more acute and centralized force where the point of impact is greater than for most road bike applications, unless u were to fall and something sharp were to come in contact with ur frame.

Bike road frames are buffered with items like carbon fork, wheels and tires.

 

[BATMANs]

A golf club deals with a more acute and centralized force where the point of impact is greater than for most road bike applications, unless u were to fall and something sharp were to come in contact with ur frame.

Bike road frames are buffered with items like carbon fork, wheels and tires.

Applications:

Wear resistant components: sandblasting nozzles
Refractory industry: as an antioxidant additives in magnesia-carbon bricks (MgO-carbon bricks)
Abrasives: lapping and polishing powders
Armor tiles: High density boron carbide armor tiles, bullet proofing seats of Apache attack helicopters. Mainly produced by hot pressing.
Nuclear industry: neutron absorber, poison pellets. Example: US Patent 4,684,480. Title: Ceramic bonded neutron absorber plates of boron carbide and free carbon
Radiation protection & shielding
Reinforcement: Metal Matrix Composites (MMC), light weight cermets, aluminum matrix boron carbide composite (B4C/Al) used for bicycle frames. Example: US Patent # 4,718,941 "Infiltration processing of boron carbide-, boron- and boride-reactive metal cermets"
Raw material: for producing other boron containing materials such as titanium boride, TiB2. Reaction: 2TiO2 + B4C + 3C = 2TiB2 + 4CO
Solid fuel: HTPB/Boron carbide based propellants for ducted rockets
Boriding agent: Boron carbide is one of the raw materials used in boriding agents. Boriding (Boronizing) is a surface treatment (pack cementation). Boride surface layer(s) is formed after the treatment. The hardness and the wear resistance of the surface are greatly improved.
Welding electrodes: Boron carbide containing welding rods are used to improve the wear resistance of surface

 

[hd reynolds]

Putting brittle fibers in a brittle matrix isn't a terribly great idea either, but if they slip the word "nano" into the add copy enough times people will buy it anyway.

FWIW, Argon 18 is already using nano-technology in the Gallium CF road frame, particularly in the seat stays.

 

[artmichalek]

FWIW, Argon 18 is already using nano-technology in the Gallium CF road frame, particularly in the seat stays.

But they've been using them with a regular epoxy matrix, as has Easton. Both companies are using nanotubes as a filler material between normal carbon fibers, and while they love to talk about how magically strong the individual nanotubes are they offer no proof of exactly how much stronger the composite is.

 

[hd reynolds]

But they've been using them with a regular epoxy matrix, as has Easton. Both companies are using nanotubes as a filler material between normal carbon fibers, and while they love to talk about how magically strong the individual nanotubes are they offer no proof of exactly how much stronger the composite is.

Well for perspective I play badminton and have used many Yonex Carbon Graphite rackets which are really durable taking string tension of up to 27lbs. In Badminton terms, 27lbs is really taking it near the limit where most other rackets take around 18-25lbs. About 1-1/2 years ago Yonex as well as Wilson introduced their rackets this time using nanocarbon technology. These rackets can take up to 30lbs string tension - which says a lot about how strong the material is. I've soon switched to these types of rackets and light & durable as they are they seem to be stiffer for my liking.

Nanocarbon for industrial application should be matrixed with, say graphite. I guess the material as it is isn't strong enough until you matrix it. But when you do add it to CF you need a lot less material resulting in a stiffer and lighter frame. But having said that, no one has produced a bike frame where nanocarbon is used entirely.

 

[RickF]

Wait I know, TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM! Its coming! Youll see!

It is already here: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131

http://www.livescience.com/technology/051018_new_glass.html