Motorcycle Pleasure

Throughout history, human beings have invented many road transportation vehicles. The invention of the wheel is of course the beginning to open this road, but the spirit of discovery is the emotion that feeds these inventions. There is one among cars, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks, buses and many transportation vehicles, which is almost like the representative of free spirits...

The history of the motorcycle is not really full of miracles. In 1869, Sylvester Roper of Massachusetts, USA, tried to develop a motorcycle-like vehicle powered by steam power. In 1893, Felix Millet fitted a five-cylinder engine to the front wheel of a bicycle, creating a vehicle quite similar to today's motorcycle. The first successful two-wheeled motor vehicle was designed by French inventors Michael and Eugene Werner. The Werner brothers placed the engine of the vehicle under the frame between the two wheels. After that date, the engine has always remained in the same place in motorcycle designs. In the motorcycles produced, the preferences of the users come to the fore rather than the type distinction.

For example, touring-sport motorcycles, which are produced as a result of an effort to include the features of both touring and sports motorcycles in a single motorcycle, are preferred by many engine lovers. Of course, in this motorcycle, the speed of a sports motorcycle should not be expected, as well as the riding comfort of a touring motorcycle. The result is a motorcycle that outperforms a touring bike and offers better riding comfort than a sports bike.

Today, motorcycles are evaluated not only in terms of design and features, but also in many aspects. Swiss 3D printing company 9T Labs has produced the motorcycle's rear suspension rocker arm from 3D-printed carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics, achieving a 50% lighter part weight than cast aluminum. Saroléa is a historic Belgian brand that ceased operations in 1963 and was reborn in 2008 to make electric bikes, including racing bikes that will compete at the Isle of Man TT Zero Race. 9T Labs' hybrid 3D printing/electric compression molding process combines optimized continuous carbon fiber preform insertion into a compression mold followed by overmolding of matrix resin, in this case polyetherketoneketone (PEKK), which is also Solvay's stock. The part also assembles metal inserts (bearings) that are pre-installed in the compression die. The rear suspension rocker arm with a thrust size of 350 (L) x 270 (W) x 250 (H) mm weighs less than 100 grams excluding the bearings and costs 37% less to manufacture than a production of 8,000 units. Courtesy of Stephen Moore3D-printed rocker arm A rear suspension rocker arm printed with carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastics is 50% lighter and cheaper to manufacture than a metal predecessor. 9T Labs also offers a full service for customers looking to convert aluminum parts to plastic, starting with the Fibrify Design Suite, which is used to tailor a metal part to an optimized composite design. Fibrify software imports CAD files and runs finite element analysis (FEA) simulations. Combined with 9T Labs' manufacturing execution system (MES), the production of high-performance carbon composite parts is said to be "a click away".