How Aluminum Extrusions Help Improve Boating and Motor Sports in the United States
Sport is primarily about competition. A person gets satisfaction when he/she implements knowledge, skills, strength, or agility in solving important tasks and eventually succeeds! Wins! So, one of the main areas of human activity, which helps people to use their enormous potential for victory, is sport.
Sports and technological progress
Sport is not only about the competition of the athletes themselves and improving their personal skills. In professional sports, there is always a team of coaches, sparring partners, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, and other specialists working together to achieve a certain result, even if a person sees sports as a pleasure or a way to improve health.
This is especially evident in the areas of boating and motor sports. These sports are excellent examples of where technological progress has a decisive impact on the achievement of sporting victories. Both require high-tech equipment and innovative solutions to achieve the best results.
Technological advances allow for lighter, faster, and more maneuverable ships, cars, and motorcycles, which gives sportsmen the ability to compete at high speeds and ensures safety during races. Also, modern navigation and communication technologies allow for better control and optimal distribution of team strength and achieve better results. On the other hand, this can make sports too expensive, but anyway, many people are willing to pay for it.
Moreover, sports competitions in technological fields themselves have a positive impact on technological development, as they are an excellent testing ground for new materials, technological solutions, monitoring sensors, modeling, calculation methods, etc. Boating, motorcycling, and motorsports have become sources of transportation development improving speed, maneuverability, and safety.
The emergence of aluminum in boating sport
Aluminum as a structural material alternative to steel became available in the 1930s. Its appearance played an important role in the development of sailing, as it allowed for the creation of lightweight and stable ships that could reach high speeds. For the first time in the 1930s, British boat designer and sailing enthusiast Uffa Fox used aluminum to create ships for regattas.
Many of his designs utilized military developments that included molded sheets of extruded aluminum. This made it possible to create lightweight, strong, and fast boats that won competitions. Aluminum structures were used in racing boats such as the AC75 used in the American Cup, as well as in catamarans used in long-distance racing.
The emergence of aluminum in motor sport
The first sports motorcycles with aluminum frames were developed in the 1970s in the United States by Honda. The Honda CB750 model was the first to use an aluminum frame. It was introduced in 1969 and as a revolutionary product that was much different from traditional motorcycles of its time. In 1975, Honda released a model of a motorcycle with an aluminum frame, which was called the Honda CR250M Elsinore.
This motorcycle was the first production motorcycle with an aluminum frame in the history of motorcycling. Its design allowed for weight reduction and increased maneuverability, which gave it an advantage on the track. Since then, aluminum construction has become the standard in the production of sports motorcycles.
Another example is the use of aluminum in the construction of motocross motorcycles, that appeared in 1974, the Japanese manufacturer Yamaha introduced the YZ250 model, which used an aluminum frame and other parts made of this material. This made it possible to reduce the weight of the motorcycle and increase its strength, which in turn made it possible to win competitions.
In general, aluminum has become a popular material in both marine and motor sports because of its high strength, corrosion resistance, and low weight. This has resulted in lighter and more maneuverable motorcycles that deliver better performance on the track. In addition, aluminum is used to make engine parts, which increases their efficiency and performance.
Aluminum vs. composite materials
With the advent of composite materials, aluminum has lost ground in the production of sports motorcycle frames and car bodies. They provide high strength and lightness. Composite materials, like aluminum alloys, are highly resistant to corrosion, but they are less susceptible to damage from impacts or collisions than aluminum.
In addition, due to their even lower weight, composite materials can be more energy efficient than aluminum enclosures. Composite materials are usually more expensive than aluminum, especially when it comes to high-strength or other special properties of composites.
However, it is also important to take into account the technological properties of each material and the costs of processing and manufacturing parts. For example, aluminum can be processed by extrusion, which allows for the efficient manufacture of complex shaped parts, while composite materials usually require more complex molding and manufacturing processes. So, in general, the cost of production can be a determining factor in the choice of material.
Thus, in this competition, aluminum still has an advantage. And this advantage is extrusion.
Aluminum extrusion processes – a technological advantage
Composite materials are not usually processed by extrusion. The essence of extrusion is that metal parts are formed by forcing them through an outlet hole, which sets the required shape of the product. This makes it possible to efficiently produce elongated parts, profiles, and sheets from aluminum and its alloys. Extrusion is an industrial method of forming aluminum parts that has many advantages.
Due to the plastic properties of aluminum, it is well suited for hot, cold, or warm extrusion. Hot extrusion is a fast process, but it does not provide very high shape accuracy and surface quality. Lowering the temperature slows down the process, but the surface quality and shape accuracy are improved.
In both cases, aluminum extrusion takes place at temperatures much lower than steel extrusion. The high pressure during the molding process ensures that there are no voids in the material. Sheets and elongated profiles made of molded aluminum are ideal for creating boat hulls, and cutting such profiles allows for the mass production of smaller serial parts such as fasteners, clamps, other connecting parts, instrument housings, tubes, and wires.
The aluminum extrusion process can easily become part of assembly-line production. In such production facilities, pressure and temperature monitoring of important areas is used. This allows for a quick response to changes or malfunctions in the process, which reduces the percentage of rejects. The process is monitored using sensors connected online with computers, which also store the data obtained. This allows for the timely elimination of any negative factors that could affect product quality.
The combination of these advantages has allowed aluminum to become a popular structural material in modern marine sports.
Reliability of automotive aluminum extrusion products
In-line inspection methods are used to ensure the reliability of automotive aluminum extrusion products. Methods for monitoring mechanical properties are key tests because the strength of the material determines the wear resistance of the entire mechanism. Among these methods, tensile testing provides the maximum amount of data on how the material will behave when subjected to a mechanical load, and how much force must be applied to break it.
For this purpose, a special sample is made from the product and used in tensile measurements using tensile measuring machines. The preparation of such a specimen requires high precision because only a correct reproduction of its shape can guarantee the reliability of tensile test results.
TensileMill CNC Inc. has extensive experience in creating systems for preparing such specimens. The Flat Tensile Sample Preparation system is a series of software-controlled milling machines designed specifically to facilitate this stage of quality control of aluminum extrusions. Without excessive effort and pain, the company’s equipment allows operators of any level to achieve excellent results in creating dog bone tensile test specimens, and thus guarantee the accuracy of tensile tests.
We welcome customers who work with aluminum extrusion in the boating and motor sports industries and invite them to visit the TensileMill CNC Inc. store website.
