In Reply to: Metal fatigue posted by neolith on September 21, 2012 at 19:07:24:
I wanted to add something...perhaps 'picky'.
My understanding of fatigue limit it is that stress level under which the test piece has essentially no wear from the stress. ABove the fatigue limit, you being eating into the ultimate lifetime. In Bicycles, some riders complain of a bike going 'soft' after part of a season. This is nutty, given the high strenght steel they were talking about, the work hardened nature of same as well as the impossiblity of even the strongest rider exceeding the fatigue limits of the frame.
The strength limit question is why an Aluminum structure can't take (full) advantage of the lower weight material. It's gotta be built stronger to make up for no fatigue strength. Aluminum bikes are also generally made with large diameter tubes (at least 6000 series) in order to minimize the 'soda straw' effect. Walls must be a certain %age of diameter to help in this factor......
Too much is never enough
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Follow Ups
- RE: Metal fatigue - pictureguy 12:29:31 09/22/12 (0)