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Reliability of Steerer Materials
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#22
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Reliability of Steerer Materials
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
Lou Holtman wrote in message ... John Forrest Tomlinson wrote: On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 14:07:10 +0200, Lou Holtman wrote: Believe me the steerer tube flexes. You can easily think of a more precise method yourself to measure this. Use your imagination. Have you used a precise measuring system? I don't have to I can calculate how much it flexes. Interesting. Not persuasive, but I guess we'll have to trust you. If you think you can see it by eyeballing it as you suggested it's likely that is is _your_ imagination that is producing the effect. You can use a steady reference and a little help from a second person who pushes the fork against a wall for instance. Have you ever done this? Have you ever measured this effect? Fix your frame and fork rigidly (BB shell across the jaws of a bench vice will work) so that the steerer is horizontal. Add some weight to the fork ends and measure how much they bend back. You will see that there will be considerable movement at the weights typical of a hard pull on the brake, and if you remove your stem you will readily see the steerer tube bending. Headset bearings are designed to accommodate this misalignment because of the cup and cone design, which is very appropriate for that application. Braking very hard produces a backwards force on the forks roughly equivalent to your weight, plus the weight of your bike. |
#23
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Reliability of Steerer Materials
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On 9 Aug 2004 13:05:38 -0700, (Chalo) wrote: It's not a precision quantity in question; it's big. Tandems have been known to generate braking forces that flex the fork back enough for the front tire to scuff the downtube, *without* permanently bending the fork. I'm surprised to hear that this flex occurs in the steerer and not mainly or exclusively in the blades. There are two blades, often longer in the relevant axis than the steerer. They do flex, but the steerer flexes more by virtue of its location immediately adjacent to the head bearing (which serves as a fulcrum), its limited size, and the fact that there's just one to take the load. As I said before, I have bent many fork steerers myself, and CrMo steel does not yield before first flexing deeply. Does this bind the head bearings in any way. Headsets perform some ball-and-socket type motion in addition to swiveling on axis. Jobst Brandt has repeatedly pointed out that Shimano headsets have a spherical bearing interface between the cartridge and the frame-mounted cup, in addition to the ball bearing elements within the cartridge (and that this is a good thing for their longevity). Generally speaking, though, steerer flex is hard on head bearings. Even then you must be noticing something, but attributing it to some other cause. Maybe. I have a bike with a carbon steerer tube that I don't like as much, but there are a lot of other things about it that differ from my bike with an aluminum steerer. Carbon steerers vary somewhat in their bending stiffness, but to my knowledge they never approach the effective stiffness of steel-- although in principle they possibly could. The carbon steerer on your bike may be no stiffer than the aluminum one on your other bike, and might be even less stiff. Many riders happily tolerate lots of flexibility in their bike frames and components. As long as it's not symptomatic of a dangerously underbuilt bike, it's really just a question of taste. My personal experience is that a stiffer bike maneuvers more predictably and turns pedal effort into speed more effectively than a flexible one. Rider weight and riding style no doubt have a huge part in this. Chalo Colina |
#24
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Reliability of Steerer Materials
The True Temper Alpha Q is a different all-carbon fork in that the carbon fiber is of the high modulus type and the majority of the fibers are unwoven, running from the dropouts all the way to the end of the steerer. The blades are then wrapped in a layer of woven carbon and the steerer has a mid wall wrap of fiber ina helical pattern to resist torsion. Because of this use of high modulus fiber and orientation, the stiffness of the Alpha is considerably greater than steel. Note, some carbon fiber can have elastic modulus twice that of steel. With use of low void processes, the finished product can have a modulus 20-50% greater than steel. -- Weisse Luft |
#25
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Reliability of Steerer Materials
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 04:49:52 +1000, Weisse Luft
wrote: The True Temper Alpha Q is a different all-carbon fork in that the carbon fiber is of the high modulus type and the majority of the fibers are unwoven, running from the dropouts all the way to the end of the steerer. The blades are then wrapped in a layer of woven carbon and the steerer has a mid wall wrap of fiber ina helical pattern to resist torsion. Because of this use of high modulus fiber and orientation, the stiffness of the Alpha is considerably greater than steel. Note, some carbon fiber can have elastic modulus twice that of steel. With use of low void processes, the finished product can have a modulus 20-50% greater than steel. I thought the steerer was cured first, then bonded (co-molded?) in a rooting process? In other words, that the fibers don't run from tip to top, but the steerer tube ends inside the fork crown? |
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