rcoope
Stainless
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2010
- Location
- Vancouver Canada
I'm involved in the design of an electric vehicle that's at the bicycle end of the power spectrum. It looks like the best way to do the frame is a combination of laser cut and formed parts welded to stock tubes. This has been a common approach in the bike industry, see here for example: . The entire upper part of this frame is two formed sections which are welded edge to edge to each other and to the head tube and down tube etc. Obviously a lot of motorcycles are made this way as well, with some mix of cast, extruded, formed and machined parts all welded together.
The question I have is what would be an appropriate alloy? I'm pretty sure I want to get 6061-O for the laser cut and formed parts, and then regular 6061-T6 for the tubes, weld and send the whole thing for heat treating. Obviously T6 sheet will crack when bent. 6061 was the classic allow for high performance welded parts in the bike industry, though 7005 is probably pretty common still. The manufacturers make up their own names for the alloys so you can't easily tell what is being used today. The one curious thing is 6061-O is not as commonly available as T6, eg. MetalSupermarkets doesn't have it on their website. But it is available. Also, my strategy is dependent on O being readily weldable to T6 and then properly heat treated together but I assume that should be fine. I haven't actually asked any potential experts like my favorite laser/forming shop what they think since this just came up on the weekend, but I'd welcome thoughts from PMers.
The question I have is what would be an appropriate alloy? I'm pretty sure I want to get 6061-O for the laser cut and formed parts, and then regular 6061-T6 for the tubes, weld and send the whole thing for heat treating. Obviously T6 sheet will crack when bent. 6061 was the classic allow for high performance welded parts in the bike industry, though 7005 is probably pretty common still. The manufacturers make up their own names for the alloys so you can't easily tell what is being used today. The one curious thing is 6061-O is not as commonly available as T6, eg. MetalSupermarkets doesn't have it on their website. But it is available. Also, my strategy is dependent on O being readily weldable to T6 and then properly heat treated together but I assume that should be fine. I haven't actually asked any potential experts like my favorite laser/forming shop what they think since this just came up on the weekend, but I'd welcome thoughts from PMers.