It's a graduate course, not a high-school science project. Write a paper on an interesting scientific subject.

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

It needs to be specific such as a new way to process a material or modifiny a material for a new purpose. That is where the biek comes in. There are already established parameters for what a material needs to be able to do. I was thinking of looking into a new material, or creating an alloy that would work. Still in the planning stage

If its advanced materials you are after, I think you have to go "nano" these days. Scott (I believe) has already announced that they will use carbon nanotubes in a frame. My angle would be a simple review of things like carbon nanotubes, metallic nanowires, and now organic nanowires, and then roll this all into frame materials, using Scott as an example. That's my two cents.

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Andrew

"When will i learn, people do not want to hurt but will spend $500.00 bucks to go four seconds faster." - randall t

April fools, right?

Perhaps graduate school isn't the best place for you quite yet.

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"Race day is a celebration of your training"

Not exactly my field, but perhaps a suggestion is comparing two identical bikes of different materials such as the Cervelo P3 in aluminium and carbon. Maybe you could email Gerard and set up a discussion with him and Phil to get the info on the bikes. Could make an interesting technical comparison. I'd certainly be curious. You could do the same with something like Giant TCR's, but I'll bet the guys at Cervelo are a little more approachable.

Just a suggestion.

Its nto a class on advanced materials it is an advanced look at materials. We dont really get into nano too much actually. Its more about atomic structure and dislocations more than specific materials.

Nano is definatly the big thing in materials science these days. I for one have never reall liked it though. Maybe its because there are no real clear boundries for what nano is so everyone is calling everything nano. There will be alot of people doing projects related to nano so i would like to stay away from that. That was a good idea. That would have been perfect. I am startign to think now about using composites to replace common building materials like steel or al. Looking into long term issues and expected cost reduction in manufacturing.

What about the different "carbon-like" materials out there, like the stuff Boeing used on their Xplane fighters (ref: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/)? Pretty advanced stuff. Also, how they actually had to manufacture and test the stuff was incredibly challenging. If your'e not going into gory detail about the physics of the material itself, you could focus on the engineering & manufacturing side of thee kinds of materials.

AP

whatever the topic, don't type it yourself.

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"Nobody gets out of here alive."

i am sitting on my bed typing, thats why there are so many typos.

There someone in the bed with you making it hard to type? ;-)

[reply]perhaps a suggestion is comparing two identical bikes of different materials such as the Cervelo P3 in aluminium and carbon. Maybe you could email Gerard.../reply]

I like this. As a matter of fact, I'm going to pursue this myself. Gerard, if you would be so kind as to provide me with a P3Carbon and a P3SL, I will do an in-depth comparison of the bikes based on the build materials and write a graduate-quality report based on my findings.

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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nuff said

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Jim

**Note above poster works for a retailer selling bikes and related gear*

Compare the vertical compliance of the top 5 selling carbon road bikes....with, say.....the top 5 selling bikes of 2000, 1990, and 1980.

I do not really want to just compare two things. Although the idea of the P3 may work. Now I am leaning towards an indepth look as to whether composites in the near future can replace popular engineering materials such as al or steel. I am thinking about first looking at the properties of each then appling it to applications. I also want to look at manufacturing times and costs. Then wrpa up with what it would take for composites to be more cost effiecent and if it is possible in the near furture for composites to replace some common materials. The P3 would be great to use if Gerard could give me some numbers, I ll try talking to him.

Any comments or ideas on this?

What about the different aluminum alloys out there, different heat treatments and doping profiles?
Scandium (which is really an Al tubeset with some Sc. atoms every now and then) comes to mind, just as Al and V are used to dope Titanium (not more than 10% of the total material, if I recall correctly).
That is, of course, provided you're more into metallurgy than composite materials.

Good luck and let us know whatever you publish.

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Ricardo Wickert | Team Magnesium Pur - Germany | My sporadically updated blog: The Thin Grad Line | My team-issued TT bike: Trek Speed Concept 9

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