I suspect that is what the experts at BST see as well, which is why they aren't worried about denying a claim...
I have not made one single statement about BST or their wheels -- good or bad. I haven't suggested they're bad wheels, and I haven't suggested they're in cahoots with the company that tests them. I don't even know what tests you're talking about them "putting their name on", but I'm sure many here would be interested to see the data from these tests. Edit: Interesting to see those tests results.
Didn't say you did... Here's the link that was posted a few posts before, with all the data, testing companies etc. Undoubtedly you'll want to see the data from the companies themselves but I can't be arsed to email them individually and ask for their data, you'll have to do that if you want to. http://www.blackstonetek.com/tests_wheels.html
Ultimately the truest test is how they perform in the field so to speak. Of course I would never buy a wheel design that had not passed significant lab testing. I just visually inspected mine and realized I've had them since 2002. The serial numbers are 014 for the front and 044 for the rear so they are early production wheels. Other than a bead sealing issue when using the old Pilot Race tires, these wheels have been fine. I would estimate 3,000 track miles and 20,000 street miles mounted on a mildly tuned Ducati 996. My opinion is they have been durable enough for me but would never use them after a crash without an xray inspection. I don't mean a simple tip over. Just any crash that could in any way cause significant lateral loads from tumbling.
It's hard to sandblast and repaint carbon fiber. I wonder how they will handle that when it's time for that type of maintenance?
Don't know about that. I would assume any abrasive sprayed at the resin would damage the surface to some degree.
You're a published journalist? Should have been a politician! Carry on thinking carbon wheels are the be-all end-all when governing bodies around the world say otherwise. They might be in the future as manufacturing technologies evolve but for now they're still an expensive game of Russian Roulette.
Same with Lockheed Martin, better call em up and tell them they goofed on the F35 by not putting carbon wheels on it I'm sure they'd hold up very well during carrier landings.
I'm inclined to believe the heat (and business politics) argument against wheels in top level, the most. GP, F1 and airliner brakes all get unbelievably hot - far hotter than our brakes do. Carbon does break down under heat. I am surprised to hear that the engineers you know talk about carbon's failure due to repeated stress, vs aluminum's resistance to it. Are you sure you didn't get that reversed? One of carbon fiber's biggest advantages is that carbon fibers stretch *only* elastically under stress; there is no plastic deformation in a CF composite piece. Aluminum, on the other hand (don't know about magnesium), *only* plastically deforms, and when it does so it work-hardens and becomes more brittle. The end result of that is that aluminum has effectively *no* "stress tolerance" - there is absolutely no load that you can repeat infinitely, that will not affect the part. Materials with some spring in them (steel, carbon, etc) do have a tolerance like that.
The issue is that once carbon is compromised in any way the entire unit, whatever it is, is junk. If it's a load bearing part that is. What you mentioned above is exactly why the company I worked for designed the hydrogen fuel cells for automotive and aerospace industries. The internal aluminum bottle was needed to hold the gas but it was the carbon exterior, something like 50 or 60 layers of a specially designed weave that was compressed onto the bottle and infused around it, that gave it the pressure tolerance. They came up with a way to make very readily available cylinders able to hold MUCH more than they would otherwise. What you stated above is also why the latest generations of civilian and military aircraft are using more composites in their structures than ever, which will result in a greatly extended service life.
It should be obvious that carbon fiber can't stand up to any lateral load oe flexing. Of cource Ducati has been trying to twist is part with to seperate ends of a motorcycle. Formula one trust thier lives to it as the entire driver cell is made of it. Shoddy ass carbon wheels can't be trusted for shit.
Then maybe you are not at odds as much as you think with the pro-carbon people here. Nobody is promoting running carbon wheels after compromising the unit, nor are they really defending the one-time-use factor. Added: Really, even though you can anneal and re-shape aluminum and magnesium, I'm not sure I'd trust any old wheel fixer to do that for me, either. Stock wheels, with all the factors of safety built in, sure. I've had my wheels straightened several times. But a $3000 wheel that uses as little metal as is physically possible? I am not the wheel's engineer and neither is the guy doing the repair, so how are either of us to judge that it was repaired, annealed, and re-tempered correctly? Just because damage on carbon wheels is often invisible, doesn't mean that damage on metal wheels is always visible either.
