Airbike nylon bicycle – First look

12 comments
By Richard Peace, in Yorkshire, England | Tuesday, Mar 15, 2011 12.45pm

Two British engineers have designed a bike, christened the Airbike, made entirely of nylon – and they claim it’s as strong as steel. Chris Turner and Andy Hawkins, development engineers at the Aerospace Innovation Centre in Bristol, use a laser based manufacturing process known as additive layer manufacturing (ALM).

This builds up each of the bike's components using successive layers of fused nylon powder that are just one-tenth of a millimetre thick. ALM has been previously used for satellite and aircraft parts but EADS UK, the company behind the technology, wanted to show how useful it could be for creating everyday products.

The bicycle was chosen because it's both immediately recognisable and widely popular. Even moving parts such as bearings and bottom bracket assembly are made from nylon and built up in layers using the same ALM process. EADS say it requires no maintenance.

Airbike:

Quizzed about the unusual look of the bike, a spokesman told BikeRadar that this prototype was aimed at showing what the technology could do rather than producing a high spec, high quality bike. A more practical mark 2 version is said to be on the cards, with improvements such as a double sided chain drive to stop the flex apparent in the first model. There will also be refined geometry for better handling.   

The company reckon the technology has massive potential. Dr Jean J Botti, chief technical officer at EADS, said: "ALM is truly game-changing technology that has the potential to revolutionise manufacturing for the 21st century. It can be used for a wide variety of materials, from metals to plastics (including composites), and is faster and more efficient [than traditional manufacturing methods]...

Chris turner, alm engineer and co-designer of the airbike, preparing the control system for laser sintering using nylon powder material, at the centre for additive layer manufacturing (calm):

"It uses less raw material and produces parts which are lighter, more complex and stronger. In short, this is a leaner and greener technology which can be used in many sectors from aviation through to consumer goods." ALM can even be used to manufacture parts with moving segments, removing the need for assembly, and to fuse different materials together in the same part (including metals such as titanium).   

Robin Southwell, chief-executive of EADS UK, said: "The application of this technology is to prove that you can get the combination of weight and strength which is vital in aerospace and apply it to something that everyone can see and ride on." Asked when a production version of the bike is likely to hit the market, he said "within a decade".

You can watch a video about the Airbike on the BBC News website.

You can follow BikeRadar on Twitter at twitter.com/bikeradar and on Facebook at facebook.com/BikeRadar.

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User Comments

There are 12 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 12 of 12 comments

  • But will it be more successful than Volvo's attempt at a plastic bike was in the '80's?

  • Why attempt to build the whole bike out of it? To start off with build the frame, and get that right.

  • make a bike out of cheese and we might be interested

  • or beer....

  • Looks like one of those wooden kiddies bikes with no peddles.

    Great for people learning but no use for anything else.

    Progress takes time though..

  • Aren't we missing the point a little? This company are not actually going into the bike business.

  • In this case, the technology hasn't been used to produce a truely functional assembly, but a concept visualisation (whilst it may be ridable it certainly can't be treated as you would a normal bike - it's quite delicate). ALM *can* make functional parts, but not a bicycle, as has been presented. EADS are over-selling their capability.

    ALM could (and has) been used to make an awesome set of metal cranks, however.

  • The clever bit will be the internal structure of those big sections...which we can't really see! Like bone you can make very stiff structures using not too much material.

    You can make shapes with 3d printing that are impossible to make using most other methods: no tooling, draft angles or undercuts to worry about.

    It's a very efficient way of using materials, but I'm unsure how efficent it is at using energy. The people at ARRK (big prototypers) told me their SLS lasers are only 2% efficient!

  • Some people above are missing the point, this is to show what can be done and is the first product of it's type. Stop being so critical and you can see the potential this technique has. I read about a car made using the same process the other day as well, tis the way of the future, get used to it!

  • Meh.....

    We have one of these machines at our work and I certainly wouldn't go out on the road on anything out of that machine.

    Publicity stunt.

  • Without actually using the expression "publicity stunt" the company have said that that is what it is, thicko!

  • Yeah... Apart from when they put the power down that little jockey wheel tensioning the TOP part of the chain is going to fail... Should have had the lower section of the chain tensioned.

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