Design of an ultra-light mountain bike

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to design an Ultra-Light Mountain bicycle. This project is important because it incorporates many skills and knowledge learned in the university such as vibration, composite materials, finite elements and mechanical drawing. In order to achieve the perfect design a market research was done to find the types, materials, specifications and manufacturing process of the available mountain bikes. After choosing one type that is dirt jump a study on the vibrations on the system was performed and that was achieved by deriving the equations of motion for a typical dirt jump bike. Before the design phase started; the loading profile of the bicycle was obtained by simulating bicycle using two different software. After, the two software gave the same result, the design of the bike was achieved and the new bike was made from aramid epoxy and carbon fiber. The last part of the project was to perform a cost and weight estimation of the new bike and the result was a slightly higher cost than market bikes but with significant weight reduction thus the objectives of the project were achieved.