The Art and Materials Science of 190-mph Superbikes

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The Art and Materials Science of 190-mph Superbikes Charles M. Falco Abstract The following article is an edited transcript of a talk presented in Symposium X— Frontiers of Materials Research at the 2002 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston on December 2, 2002. From Bessemer steel used on the first motorized bicycle in 1871 to sintered aluminum ceramic composites and TiN thin-film coatings used on standard production machines today, motorcycles have been at the forefront of the use of high-performance materials. Thanks to developments in materials technology, relatively inexpensive mass-produced motorcycles are now capable of achieving speeds of 190 mph. Keywords: advanced materials technology, motorcycles.

“The Art of the Motorcycle” Museum Exhibition With over two million visitors at four venues to date, “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibition, produced by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, has been by far the museum’s most successful exhibition ever. It first opened in 1998; Ultan Guilfoyle, former director of the Guggenheim’s Film and Video Production department, and I were the co-curators. In selecting motorcycles for this exhibition, we applied three criteria: aesthetic appeal, social significance, and historical or technological importance. Although all three criteria can be related to materials, here I will focus explicitly on some of the technological aspects of motorcycles that informed our choices of the specific machines for the exhibition. More information on most of the motorcycles discussed here can be found in the exhibition catalog (see Bibliography). Perhaps the single most significant motorcycle in the exhibition was the 1868–1871 Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede, made in Paris (Figure 1a). This was the world’s first motorcycle; only one was ever made, and yet it somehow survived the Franco-Prussian War and the first and second World Wars. It is now owned by the Musée de l’Ille-de-France in Sceaux, a suburb of Paris. Louis Guillaume Perreaux created this machine by installing his patented steam engine in the first mass512

produced pedal bicycle, designed by the Michaux brothers. A steam engine was a logical choice for him to use, having steadily developed from the work of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen in the 17th century to the point where Perreaux was able to make one small enough to use for this purpose. Unfortunately for Perreaux, his machine turned out to be a technological dead-end the moment it was created, since a few years earlier, in 1862, his fellow French countryman Alphonse Beau de Rochas had published the technical description of the four-cycle internal-combustion process. The Michaux-Perreaux engine produces 1–2 hp, and the overall machine weighs 195 lb (88 kg). We placed this earliest motorcycle at the entrance to the exhibition, next to the 1998 MV Agusta F4 (Figure 1b), which at that time represented the latest achievement in motorcycle design. Significantly, the MV Agusta F4 produces roughly 100 times more horsepower than the Michaux-Perreaux

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