How does Carbon fiber compare with Magnesium and Aluminium alloys?
Wheels manufactured from metal are either cast, forged, machined, or manufactured as a combination of the three processes. Aluminium wheels have been around for many years. They are relatively easy to manufacture and also relatively cheap, but they are heavy because of the density to strength ratio of Aluminium (how much strength you can get for a kilogram of Aluminium). To improve the weight you can either choose a material that is lighter or one that is stronger, or one that is lighter and stronger. Using magnesium, which is lighter but not necessarily stronger, you can improve on weight slightly. The problem with magnesium is two fold: first – its fatigue properties are poor and so are the corrosion properties, so a wheel may not last very long even if perfectly cast and machined. The second problem is worse – very often micro-porosity occurs during the casting process, which has a negative impact on both fatigue life and corrosion. So magnesium wheels can be nice and light but may
