There’s a new material in development, with great potential for making bike frames. It’s lighter, and easier to work with than titanium. It’s as strong as steel. It may eventually be as cheap as steel. Because it’s (wait for it)… steel.
‘But how is this possible?’ I hear you cry. Never fear! I shall tell you.
In the dim and distant past, aluminium was mixed with steel in an attempt to impart some of the former’s properties – namely lower densities. This always resulted in brittleness, or issues with ductility. Now, researchers from the Pohang University of Science and Technology have finally mastered the technique.
They’ve added (in varying proportions) aluminium, nickel, chrome, manganese, and carbon to iron, and liberally festooned “nanometer-sized B2 intermetallic compounds” about the place, using nickel in the admixture, which apparently increases the ductility and makes for some metallic awesomesauce. The researchers are teaming up with the magnificently named POSCO (which was once the much more boringly named Pohang Iron and Steel Company) to have a go at forging the new wonderstuff later this year. Clearly at present it’ll cost rather a lot, but potentially with mass production, it’s assumed that prices will come down massively, and potential applications will go up – including bike frames.
The main issue with current alloys of aluminium and titanium is one of cost. Ti is very abundant, but extremely hard to extract, and requires lots of unfeasibly unpleasant chemicals to do so – so don’t go thinking that Ti is particularly ecofriendly. Aluminium is extracted from ore using electrolysis, which is preposterously energy inefficient. This new steel will be potentially much easier to extract, easier to machine, weld and generally make things out of, and easier to recycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
singletrackworld.com
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