Material selection 2

Bike
As stated in the requirements, all materials selected will have a minimum fracture toughness of 15 MPa.

Street bikes
Since this is designed to be mass produced to the highest scale in comparison to almost any other kind of
bike, any manufacturer will look for the cheapest but robust material possible, this is since it does not have
to suit any purpose apart from being ridable and at least somewhat comfortable, this is due to its
possibility to be used in almost every scenario, making it impossible to suit one without disadvantaging the
other. Also. Since the people using this have not spent much money it can be assumed it will not be left in
good conditions when not used, this means it needs to have sort of corrosion protection.
To narrow my search, I limited my selection to only metals, alloys, and hybrids due to this containing
almost all the possibilities of materials that could be used for bike frames.

Since that only gave me a list of materials but did not at all rank them in any useful way, graphing all
available materials based on their price per kg against formability, this will give me an easy way of finding
the cheapest material that should also be cheap to form into the tubes for the basic frame
Low carbon steel is the first material that passes our basic requirements that is at least somewhat
formable, meaning it could be feasible for a basic bike frame.

Since steel is used for almost everything in the

modern world, it is cheap to buy, making it good for
a mass-produced basic bike frame. A long with that,
steel is strong while not being to heavy for the
average person to pick up. Since this isn’t supposed
to specialise for any one kind of biking, all that
matters is that its cheap, which it is when compared
to the other options on the graph.

Mountain bikes
The first port of call for evaluating the right material for the challenges that a mountain bike will come up is
to evaluate the materials based of getting the highest elastic limit for the lowest density. But then
comparing the selected material from the first graph to the young’s modulus of the opposing materials to
make sure its not stiff in comparison.
Since the introduction of carbon fibre it has taken over the top spot for best material for many different
applications, bike frames are no exception to this trend. The overall strength the carbon fibre reinforced
polymers gives (CFRP) in comparison to its weight/density means its not going to crumple and fold in half
on you while taking a banked corner, and it’s very easier to pivot and turn into corners due to the lack of
weight keeping it going in only one direction. It easily outclasses most of your normal materials for
structures of steel and aluminium, for the maximum force it can take. And since we are looking at the best
material for specialising into mountain biking, price as a factor to consider can be moved down a few
positions. But even if considering that, it doesn’t break the bank anymore unlike maybe a few years ago.

Sprint bikes

Once again due to the lack of needing to worry about money as much for this category of bike since
spending less to save a little money is not going to help if it means being at a performance disadvantage.
This means the incredibly light but stiff nature of carbon fibre once again make it a perfect due to it
allowing all the power you send through the pedals to go towards turning the wheel instead of bending the
bike. And it means the rider getting incredibly light for the race wasn’t for nothing since the bike clearly
slimmed down in weight since either pure aluminium or an alloy of sorts is what was used before carbon
fibre.
One thing that’s important to say is that while carbon fibre on paper should be the best to fit for the last 2
options, it does not mean that its what the rider is best with, especially for mountain biking. Different
styles of riding will mean the rider will vastly prefer either a stiffer or looser frame underneath them.
Making the idea of picking “the best frame” is a terrible idea objectively since it cannot be just decided
based of graphs and calculations.

Microwave dish
Apart from the minimum requirements that a material needs to reach to be a functional product, the
primary aspects to focus on for this type of product is price. This is because of the scale of mass
production that occurs with microwave dishes, it makes every penny that can be saved per single dish turn
into a massive saving in the long term.
After working out the minimum Youngs’ modulus and minimum maximum stress that any material selected
has to be able to withstand, all I needed to do to narrow down the possibilities to a very small group was to
set some bars that any material that could be considered much reach or exceed. This means we will not
need to worry about the material we select falling apart under the weight of the food its storing, or from
absorbing to much heat and therefore not allowing the food inside it to be heated up.

These limits give us a list of the materials that at least reach the minimum requirements needed for the
product to function in its intended environment. Know we just need to rank them based on the 2 most
important properties for its job. First would be the price of the material due to the above high amount of
product that will be created. As well as the highest functional temperature, allowing for it to function if
heated above what expected.
While brick does technically meet all requirements and is perfect for the type of product clearly, it is
hazardous to humans if pieces were ingested, and so would need to be ignored, it only appeared since I did
not limit those types of materials. After that polyethene is the cheapest that can function easily over
100*c, which is the higher than most microwaves get to, meaning it will not melt.
It is also perfect for mass production due to its high mouldability.