Carbon-fibre is a wonderful material, lighter and stronger than steel, able to be formed into a myriad of shapes, but the motorcycle world has not taken to using carbon-fibre as a major component of bike frames, save in certain instances. The first-generation Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP used a carbon-fibre frame, as did the Elf 3 prototype and the Bimota Tesi in its early iterations.
Despite the effort, and money spent, carbon-fibre frames fell by the wayside. The reason why is varied and complicated, but this has not deterred BMW Motorrad. According to a Motorcycle News report, Karl Viktor Schaller, head of all motorcycle research and development at BMW, has officially confirmed that work is underway at the Motorrad works to investigate the use of carbon-fibre in motorcycle applications.
Schaller admits he does not see a wide-spread use of carbon-fibre in the Motorrad machines, but says there are areas where carbon-fibre can perform in ways aluminium cannot. “There may well be a number of bikes where carbon-fibre technology can be introduced. We have seen this technology on our cars and these are at a top level. I think this would be the same for bikes. In terms of the way carbon-fibre might be used it’s not a case of simply replacing aluminium castings for the same shape of component built from carbon-fibre. The material works very differently and would need for a complete rethink of how the motorcycle was designed from the start,” he said.
BMW last year filed a series of patents covering the use of carbon-fibre in motorcycles. One of these was a carbon-fibre beam frame for use in sportsbikes, while another showed a carbon-fibre trellis frame that could easily find an application in BMW’s R and GS series of bikes.
The process of filing a patent can be prohibitively expensive, and Schaller says about half the patents BMW files around the world will make it to production. “Some of the work can be seen as playing around for the engineers to see what is possible, but I would say it’s around 50/50 over those that go ahead. It’s so expensive that we have to think carefully about this,” Schaller said.
GALLERY: BMW S1000RR racing at the Bol d’Or
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- 2015 British Superbike Championship, BSB R10, Assen, Holland. 18th September 2015. Lee Jackson, Lincoln, Buildbase BMW Motorrad
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- BOL D OR 2015
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While Carbon Fibre based parts might offer some advantages in terms of strength-to-weight ratio, it might not be feasible to totally implement it for the larger part, namely the frame structure as the material is super stiff, the bike’s handling could be a bit unpredictable especially at high speed (in the case of sportsbike). Remember the ill-handling carbon fibre framed-Ducati Desmosedici GP9/10? Casey Stoner is the only guy who could tame the beast..
As for the Sportsbike application, have BMW Motorrad people learned anything from the ill/unpredictable-handling carbon fibre-framed Ducati Desmosedici GP9 & GP10??