My bad. The funny thing is I just had a similar conversation with someone about engine power output with turbo vs NA engines (cars) and they tried to claim power is power, so I was still a bit worked up.
All good, I'm mid-interweb battle on the Facebooks with a guy over whether the Tuono is better than the SuperDuke so I'm also suffering from "shithead transference" syndrome. BTW Turbo's!!!!
As a raw material aluminum is lighter than titanium. But strength to weight ratio, titanium beats aluminum. Titanium is just as strong as steel but has half the density of steel. Aluminum as 1/3 the strength of steel. So lets say you made a gas tank out of steel and it weighed 10 pounds, you would have to use 30 pounds of aluminum vs 5 pounds of titanium to make a gas tank that was just as strong as the steel tank.
That does not sound right. You don't build things or replicate them, based on weight. You may have to go 30-50% thicker aluminum vs steel, but you'd still have a weight reduction.
You are missing a big part of the steel vs alum vs ti issue as well, COST. Alum and ti are far more expensive as raw materials and to manufacture than steel. Steel is not needed for strength on say, fuel tanks, but it is far more cost effective than what the avg red power band consumer is willing to pay.
sorry I used wrong terminology. aluminum has 1/3 of the strength of steel so you would have to use 3 times as much aluminum to make something as strong as steel so the aluminum item would weigh more than the titanium item
It would be interesting to know what design criteria led them to using TI. I'm guessing that the marketing department played a strong role in that decision. No one brags about a steel tank. It would be interesting to know how they justified the added cost. I would guess that on a sportbike weight has a dollar amount tied to it and if the weight savings doesn't exceed a certain dollar amount then it is justified. Like you mentioned strength isn't really a strong factor in designing a fuel tank which is why plastic is used in many applications. TI is more brittle than steel which makes it more difficult to form and more likely to crack from an impact. Being that the tank on this bike is not directly exposed means the latter is less of an issue.
Manufacturing processes are a lot better (affordable) than they were as well, contantly making it a more viable option. I'm curious if its stamped or hydroformed and how big the seam(s) are.
Look at the announcement about the CBR on RRW. They showed a picture of the tank. It's two formed pieces; an upper and lower.
The ti used for the tank can be thinner than aluminum used in the same application, making the tank lighter. That's what the Honda engineers told me.
^^ yeah the Ti tank doesn't really make alot of sense to me either. There are many areas where the material properties of Ti vs Al would make the cost justified by being able to reduce the cross section and keep the strength but I struggle to see where the tank fits into that. I mean it is not pressurized, doesn't carry significant load, is not designed as a stressed member on the bike. I am sure there is a impact/stressor analysis that tanks go through but I would figure that it wasn't significant.
There's a thing called a product differentiator--probably not a real word, but basically some feature that sets a product apart from the competition, whether it's needed or not. A ti tank probably comes falls into that category. Does anybody need it? Probably not, but then there is the cool factor...
You guys don't know what your talking about....Ti mixes with your race gas to make rocket fuel which automatically raises the red limiter to 14 brazillion rpm.....
umm... it's Honda- the guys that used magnesium engine covers 18+ years ago and brought us crap like VTEC on bikes because...Honda
Honda will do something wicked cool and then. . . will f@ck it up six ways 'til sunday. I bet the CBR1000RRRRRRRRSPRRR shows up with a CB radio, Sirius radio and white walls because Honda.
