Material recommendation for a motorcycle based trike????

[2T Institute]

Fusionking maybe you could learn the metric system?

T45 is AWESOME material has excellent properties, like Fusionking says though Aluminium is a bit different it does not have the inherent strength of steel. Typicaly a aluminium section of a motorcycle frame will be roughly twice as thick as a steel section. Aluminium will distort a lot during welding and you will have to weld it on the jig and be mindful of your cooling rates.

I seriously suggest you buy John Bradley's book 'The Racing Motorcycle Vol 2 , A technical Guide for Constructors' John is a highly respected engineer(and lecturer) and is always willing to give his advice .

[grommet]

thanks 2T Institute i will have a look at this book as for some of the others on this thread you know jack about my welding skills, i have well over 32 current codings inc alu, stainless etc, so thanks to anyone thats wants to give a little advise but to anyone that wants to put me down go and f$*@ off

[Jigantor]

Hi Grommet,
Most steel based motorcycle frames are made from chrome moly with similar properties to 4130.
Old BSA frames were made from Reynolds 531.
The modern ali frames are highly engineered. They are made up of cast ali sections that are welded together.
Ali does suffer from fatigue and will fail via cracking.
Ali also has strength loss in the HAZ of all welded joints. Post welding heat treatment can solve this.
Before the modern ali framed MX bikes a few accessory companies made some ali swingarms. These were heavier than the steel ones due to the depth of section and wall thickness needing to be twice that of steel.
In 1964 BSA made 40 titanium frames for their world cup mx bike. these cost a fortune and were not designed very well.
You could try Ti if you can afford it.

Ji