Virtual Bicycle Test Centre

SAFE AND RELIABLE BICYCLE

It is the one which fulfils the international quality standards documented in:

ISO

American

Above standards describe in details the requirements, how bicycle and individual parts shall be designed and which tests shall fulfill to assure durability and safety.

An example of bicycle part test is shown.

During testing various service loads are simulated like: standing on the pedals, cyclic jumping, braking, impact and crash loads. The most common form of frame failure is fatigue failure. Cyclic loads cause initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks, especially in the notch regions like weld toe & root. Depends on the bicycle type (mountain, racing, city) different tests are required to verify the design.

The virtual bicycle tests are conducted with the use of dedicated engineering software for advanced finite element analysis which ensure good agreement with the test.

VKB Tech offers FEA services including:

The application of special modelling technique of weld joints (submodeling) allowing us to accurately predict stress amplitudes at weld toe/root, that is where usually fatigue cracks starts. Knowing the stress range and material fatigue data we can accurately predict durability performance at the early design stage and efficiently improve the design to avoid potential issue during real testing.

DESIGN OF CUSTOM BICYCLE FRAME

You have a frame design or a concept, but you don’t know whether your frame is strong enough. We can test it in our virtual lab by conducting strength and durability tests according to ISO 4210-6 standard. We create FE model based on delivered CAD geometry file (.igs or .stp) or 2D drawings/sketches. Within few days you will get an answer whether your frame will perform well during services and whether and how improve the design.

Please contact us for more information or if you wish to talk to us about a specific project.