Topic starter
As I was walking back from lunch in the week I saw the Charge Bikes van parked outside the Airbus Composite Structures Development Centre.
Is there a carbon Charge coming? Why else could it be there, frame structural tests? Interesting wild speculation welcome!
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:46 am
they were there looking at some sheet Ti cutting machines that Airbus use.
have a look at their twitter feed for details.
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:49 am
Interesting, 😉
Not a Charge badged version of this I hope:
[img] 
[/img]
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:53 am
Topic starter
In Bristol having a look at a 3D Titanium printer. Yes a machine that prints Titanium!
Wow! What would be printed? Dropouts? Disc mounts?
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:55 am
Details of the technology in the accompanying press release:
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:55 am
From the link:
The revolutionary manufacturing process is known as Additive Layer Manufacturing (or ALM) and it allows single products to be grown from a fine powder of metal (such as titanium, stainless steel or aluminium), nylon or carbon-reinforced plastics from a centre located next to Airbus’ site at Filton. Similar in concept to 3D printing, the bike design is perfected using computer-aided design and then constructed by using a powerful laser-sintering process which adds successive, thin layers of the chosen structural material until a solid, fully-formed bike emerges.
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:57 am
Topic starter
So it is the same process, the printing can deposit titanium powder!
Posted : 01/04/2011 8:58 am
well I was close with the ti cutting thing....
Posted : 01/04/2011 9:01 am