What are the wall thickness of some aluminum mountain bikes, or racing bikes?
well it varies cheap bikes will be thick and heavy light bikes will have thick sections [ at the welds ] and thin sections [out in the middle of straight tubes] also, AL bikes are sometimes made with 'hydroforming', which can produce all kinds of complicated shapes, inside the tube and out but let;s just say, cheap clunky bikes, max is maybe 2mm thinnest section on a racing bike, maybe .5mm o h here is something Aluminum has a different optimal wall thickness to tubing diameter than steel. It is at its strongest at around 200:1 (diameter:wall thickness), so if the outer diameter were 20mm, the inner would be 20/200=.1mm that sounds pretty thin here is some more examples === This is a model of a Reynolds 6061 Aluminum downtube. The diameter is 1.375 and the butt thicknesses are: 1.9/1.0/1.3mm This is a typical oversized Aluminum downtube. Maximum deflection is 1.6000 Mass is 240g This is a model of an oversized 6061 Aluminum downtube. The diameter is 1.5 and the butt profile is still 1.9/1/1.3mm. This represents an oversized and thick walled aluminum downtube. Maximum deflections is 0.8395 Mass is 309g. This is a model of a Reynolds 631 steel downtube. It's 1.25 in diameter, the butting is .9/.6/.9. This is a very common butt thickness for a non heat-treated tube. It is a very typical mid level steel downtube. Maximum deflection on this tube is 0.6718 Mass is 397g. This is model of a True Temper OX-Platinum downtube, 1.375 diameter. The butt thickness on this tube is .7/.4/.7 This is a fairly typical butt profile for top of the line steel tubing with a UTS around 180,000psi (OX-Gold, OX-Platinum, Reynolds 853, Columbus Nivacrom) Maximum deflection on this tube is 0.5339 Mass is 300g. === is that close enough? wle
