Adonis72

Article on Super Magnesium bike material.. interesting characteristics.. thoughts? Article linked below

super-magnesium

oujeep1

How is "super" magnesium different than plain magnesium. Like I had in the soles of my DMT shoes that split clear across the sole right under the cleat.

Planemaker

Interesting.

I also know there is a company that is pioneering 3D printing of titanium. Imagine how much lighter a 3D printed titanium bike with fewer welds would be over a conventional titanium frame.

San Pedro

I'm interested to see a bike made out of it. Then we can debate about the magnesium bike spontaneously combusting while you're going down a descent

Racing Dan

Lets see some product before falling on our asses. You know, if you had $1 for every time some start up promised the moon, you would just get a top of the line carbon bike ;-)

Adonis72

Well its super soooo its gotta be good! Would like to see one for myself. Not a fan of the design on the bike they showed.

StephenH

"How Does ALLITE® SUPER MAGNESIUMTM Compare to Other Materials?...Our alloys compare favorably to other materials and magnesium alloys on the market. But only ALLITE® SUPER MAGTM has flame ******ancy that allows it to melt, instead of burn, under a 1200° F flame."
And they list a number of other alloys currently on the market with similar properties.
Given that magnesium bicycles bursting into flame is generally not a consideration, there seems to be little new here.
Meanwhile, I understand that Paketa, the magnesium tandem manufacturer, is on their way out of business. (I had heard bankruptcy, can't find that anywhere online, their website doesn't mention anything negative, but doesn't appear to be selling bikes any longer, either, so it's hard to say.)

caloso

I thought this thread was going to be about a new supplement to deal with cramping.

Dean V

Its performance/weight specs do not appear to be anything that can't be matched with aluminium alloys.
So I can't see anything groundbreaking coming out of it.

JohnDThompson 

Way back in 1986, Kirk marketed a cast magnesium frame that never went very far in the marketplace:

https://bicycletimesmag.com/vintage-...irk-precision/

Paketa claims to have addressed the corrosion issue, but suffers a similar lack of market penetration.

I suspect the problem may be that magnesium just doesn't offer enough advantages over other, better established frame materials.

Sy Reene

What happens if a vandal holds a match to one of these frames?

Bob Dopolina 

I would like to see if this material is truly viable just out of personal interest. It may have been, years ago, but there have been several improvements to aluminium over the last 20 years that may have killed magnesium for good.

A personal magnesium story.

Back in 2003, my team was sponsored by a major Taiwanese rim maker. Basically, they gave us wheels, we tested them, I wrote reports and they paid sponsorship monies. win, win, win.

One day I went to their factory and they gave me a prototype set of magnesium rim. They wanted me to lace them up and put some test miles on them. I said ok.

It was during a pretty busy time in our calendar so I left them in my office for a few weeks before I finally got to them. I had left them sitting on the inside window ledge, exposed to the sun the entire time.

When I finally went to get them, I picked one rim up and it crumbled in my hand. By this I mean it fell apart like I had grabbed a handfull of cookie dough.

Keep in mind, I had played with these in the factory, pulling, compressing, twisting and tapping them. They were solid alloy, at the time.

Now, I crumbed the rest of the rims into a brown envelope and returned them to the factory like a bag of smashed Oreos. They we not happy.

They didn't renew our sponsorship for the next season despite several Asia Tour Podium finished by our riders.

CliffordK

Hmmm...

Magnesium has been used on and off in the auto industry for eons.

"Mag Wheels". I think some bikes may have also had true magnesium wheels.

There was a TV show a while ago about restoring a vintage auto that had a magnesium body. The biggest issue was to be very very careful with welding the stuff.

Now, for a bicycle, one could potentially weld it in an inert environment, especially if one was using robotics.

Everything about that "super magnesium" sounds like titanium. It would be interesting to compare the two side by side.

Bob Dopolina 

^^^ This.

BlazingPedals

I'm curious as to what other metals are in the alloy. There's not a lot of actual information there. I'd love to score some 825 Titanium for a lowracer build. "Super Magnesium?" Not gonna hold my breath.

CliffordK

Hmmm...

There is some info here:

https://alliteinc.com/super-magnesium/
https://alliteinc.com/faq/

I am reading about other magnesium alloys, not sure if they're related using pure magnesium plus a micro dispersion of silicone carbide microparticles

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16445 (abstract).

So, there are a couple of different allite alloys with different properties, for either weldability or machinability.

Weight is lighter than aluminum, but stronger than aluminum, while titanium is heavier than aluminum (and also stronger than aluminum).

So, what this means is the potential for thinner wall tubing, perhaps to replace some of the places where aluminum is used.

So, if say a Cannondale CAD... frame is barely heavier than a carbon fiber frame, then a new super-magnesium frame could be the same weight or lighter than carbon fiber, and hopefully with better crush and impact resistance.

CliffordK

One thing that is odd about that... and a potential issue is that US Tariffs are apparently upside-down, allowing finished products in, but preventing American companies from access to raw materials.

At least at the time the website was last updated.

Dean V

It is not stronger than aluminium. They quote a yield strength around 300mpa and UTS at 350mpa.
This is similar to 6061 T6 alloy but the magnesium is lighter.
However there are aluminium alloys considerably better than 6061 so as I said before it isn't really any better than aluminium and still some way behind what can be achieved with carbon.

fietsbob

Got the standard alloy % of this superb magnesium super?

popeye

Is it possible these were cast and machined rather than extruded hoops welded? I have seen plenty of cra* made from cast mag.

Bob Dopolina 

No, these were extruded. In fact, this vendor buys raw materials and smelts their own alloys, in house. They control every step of production.

FlashBazbo

Yes, the only "hint" they gave was that "it reverts to PURE magnesium in the recycling process. Hmmm. How does an alloy become pure metal without . . . . never mind. In most companies, sometimes the marketing department gets ahead of the engineering department.

Magnesium by itself is very bendy -- you can even injection mold magnesium. And when it oxidizes, which it likes to do, it turns to powder. (And who can forget lighting those magnesium strips back in chemistry class?) Magnesium racing wheels never earned DOT certification because of the properties of the metal. Hopefully, this is an alloy that breeds out some of those nasty properties.

Sojodave

GCN showed a video of a super magnesium bike at the Handmade show.

Psimet2001 

I always hated when we were machining magnesium. You can keep it.

Also every magnesium rim I have ever had my hands on was pretty much a steaming pile.

Road Fan

The patter also says it's cheaper. Just as good + Cheaper = Better. == Business 101.