Altair Case Studies Developing Ultra-Lightweight, High Performance Road Bikes with IoT

	Developing Ultra-Lightweight, High Performance Road Bikes with IoT Altair

Developing Ultra-Lightweight, High Performance Road Bikes with IoT

Altair

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet
Applicable Industries	Aerospace Life Sciences
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Additive Manufacturing Manufacturing Process Simulation
Services	Testing & Certification
Challenge	Rolo Bikes, a company founded by Adam Wais and Anders Annerstedt, aimed to fill a gap in the market for ultra-high performance bicycles tailored to individual rider requirements. The challenge was to develop a high-performance, ultra-lightweight composite bike frame that exhibited world-leading strength and stiffness attributes while keeping weight to an absolute minimum. The design team at Rolo wanted to optimize the structure and find the ideal layout of carbon fiber that did not use any unnecessary material. However, the team lacked the in-house computer-aided engineering (CAE) expertise required to accurately analyze and optimize the frame. The objective was to achieve world-leading performance for weight, stiffness, and comfort, and to develop an efficient and cost-effective virtual testing process to analyze the performance of future bike frames. Read More
About Customer	Rolo Bikes is a company founded by Adam Wais and Anders Annerstedt, based in Sweden. The founders believed that the cycling industry was becoming stale, with nothing truly exciting hitting the marketplace. They spotted a gap in the market for a range of ultra-high performance bicycles that are tailored to the individual requirements of each rider. By combining a passion for cycling with a unique set of design and business expertise gained in other industries, the team founded Rolo Bikes with the aim of developing the best performing bicycles available. The company is now in a position to provide advisory services based on this work to other companies in the cycling industry. Read More
Solution	Rolo Bikes approached Altair ProductDesign due to its familiarity with the HyperWorks suite and expertise in the application of CAE techniques to optimize carbon fiber structures. Altair ProductDesign utilized a three-step approach to optimize the carbon fiber frame. The shape, thickness, direction, and location of each layer of composite material were fine-tuned until an optimum solution had been reached. Each stage was performed using HyperWorks' structural analysis solver, OptiStruct. The stages included Free-Size Optimization, Size Optimization, and Shuffle Optimization. At the end of this process, HyperWorks was utilized again to analyze and validate the optimized frame against the CEN and Zedler tests, and assess fatigue performance. The resulting composite ‘layup’ created a component that is manufacturable for Rolo’s meticulous hand layup construction process employed in its European based manufacturing center, all within cost targets. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud

Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet

Applicable Industries

Aerospace

Life Sciences

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Additive Manufacturing

Manufacturing Process Simulation

Services

Testing & Certification

Challenge

Rolo Bikes, a company founded by Adam Wais and Anders Annerstedt, aimed to fill a gap in the market for ultra-high performance bicycles tailored to individual rider requirements. The challenge was to develop a high-performance, ultra-lightweight composite bike frame that exhibited world-leading strength and stiffness attributes while keeping weight to an absolute minimum. The design team at Rolo wanted to optimize the structure and find the ideal layout of carbon fiber that did not use any unnecessary material. However, the team lacked the in-house computer-aided engineering (CAE) expertise required to accurately analyze and optimize the frame. The objective was to achieve world-leading performance for weight, stiffness, and comfort, and to develop an efficient and cost-effective virtual testing process to analyze the performance of future bike frames.

About Customer

Rolo Bikes is a company founded by Adam Wais and Anders Annerstedt, based in Sweden. The founders believed that the cycling industry was becoming stale, with nothing truly exciting hitting the marketplace. They spotted a gap in the market for a range of ultra-high performance bicycles that are tailored to the individual requirements of each rider. By combining a passion for cycling with a unique set of design and business expertise gained in other industries, the team founded Rolo Bikes with the aim of developing the best performing bicycles available. The company is now in a position to provide advisory services based on this work to other companies in the cycling industry.

Solution

Rolo Bikes approached Altair ProductDesign due to its familiarity with the HyperWorks suite and expertise in the application of CAE techniques to optimize carbon fiber structures. Altair ProductDesign utilized a three-step approach to optimize the carbon fiber frame. The shape, thickness, direction, and location of each layer of composite material were fine-tuned until an optimum solution had been reached. Each stage was performed using HyperWorks' structural analysis solver, OptiStruct. The stages included Free-Size Optimization, Size Optimization, and Shuffle Optimization. At the end of this process, HyperWorks was utilized again to analyze and validate the optimized frame against the CEN and Zedler tests, and assess fatigue performance. The resulting composite ‘layup’ created a component that is manufacturable for Rolo’s meticulous hand layup construction process employed in its European based manufacturing center, all within cost targets.

Impact #1	As a result of the project, Rolo Bikes now has a comprehensive and highly accurate set of virtual test jigs which can be used to analyze the performance of any bicycle frame against industry standard performance metrics. This capability has allowed the company’s design team to significantly decrease its future development time by cutting down its reliance on expensive prototyping and physical testing processes. The optimized design was feasible from a manufacturing point of view, something that was missing from the original baseline. Looking to the future, the accuracy of Rolo’s virtual test rigs is set to improve as the design team develops its library of verified material data. This has significantly enhanced the performance of its own range of products and positioned Rolo Bikes and Altair ProductDesign to provide advisory services to other companies in the cycling industry.

Impact #1

As a result of the project, Rolo Bikes now has a comprehensive and highly accurate set of virtual test jigs which can be used to analyze the performance of any bicycle frame against industry standard performance metrics. This capability has allowed the company’s design team to significantly decrease its future development time by cutting down its reliance on expensive prototyping and physical testing processes. The optimized design was feasible from a manufacturing point of view, something that was missing from the original baseline. Looking to the future, the accuracy of Rolo’s virtual test rigs is set to improve as the design team develops its library of verified material data. This has significantly enhanced the performance of its own range of products and positioned Rolo Bikes and Altair ProductDesign to provide advisory services to other companies in the cycling industry.

Benefit #1	Weight of the frame reduced from 829g to 710g
Benefit #2	Significantly decreased future development time by cutting down reliance on expensive prototyping and physical testing processes
Benefit #3	Stiffness and durability performance enhanced significantly over the target values

Benefit #1

Weight of the frame reduced from 829g to 710g

Benefit #2

Significantly decreased future development time by cutting down reliance on expensive prototyping and physical testing processes

Benefit #3

Stiffness and durability performance enhanced significantly over the target values

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Overview

Developing Ultra-Lightweight, High Performance Road Bikes with IoT

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit