Yeaaahhh… the upper limit of my engineering experience is as an e-bike/e-scooter mechanic. But that’s more than enough to know that I don’t want an aluminum frame on a vehicle going faster than 20mph.
Aluminum doesn’t handle torsion or vibration well. Like, at all. I’ve tried to bend aluminum handlebars back after they’ve suffered a short drop on a curb when the kickstand failed. If they’ve had enough, they just SNAP. Like fucking twigs. Now, for microvehicles that typically don’t suffer a lot of the kind of vibration that big aluminum parts have to take (think wind turbine blades and aircraft), that isn’t a big deal. They’re operating at low speed, and with prudent care, they last for decades.
However (and this is where I would be very grateful for the insight of actual metallurgists or material scientists), there’s a good fucking reason why the frame and chassis of the average personal vehicle is made of steel of a specific carbon percentage. It has better ductility than aluminum alloy, and can handle collisions better. It absorbs that kinetic energy by bending and then relaxing. It doesn’t shatter like aluminum does. That is a crucial crash-protection feature that makes the physics behind crumple zones and crash cages work.
Yeaaahhh… the upper limit of my engineering experience is as an e-bike/e-scooter mechanic. But that’s more than enough to know that I don’t want an aluminum frame on a vehicle going faster than 20mph.
Aluminum doesn’t handle torsion or vibration well. Like, at all. I’ve tried to bend aluminum handlebars back after they’ve suffered a short drop on a curb when the kickstand failed. If they’ve had enough, they just SNAP. Like fucking twigs. Now, for microvehicles that typically don’t suffer a lot of the kind of vibration that big aluminum parts have to take (think wind turbine blades and aircraft), that isn’t a big deal. They’re operating at low speed, and with prudent care, they last for decades.
However (and this is where I would be very grateful for the insight of actual metallurgists or material scientists), there’s a good fucking reason why the frame and chassis of the average personal vehicle is made of steel of a specific carbon percentage. It has better ductility than aluminum alloy, and can handle collisions better. It absorbs that kinetic energy by bending and then relaxing. It doesn’t shatter like aluminum does. That is a crucial crash-protection feature that makes the physics behind crumple zones and crash cages work.
Cybertrucks are death traps, they start with a shit frame that cannot protect passengers at high speed collisions (carrying an extremely heavy and highly flammable battery), and end with door handles that have no manual override. Fuck everything about these fucking lemons.