AREVO, the Silicon Valley company redefining global composites manufacturing through digitalization, today announced a partnership with boutique bike manufacturer Franco Bicycles to deliver the world’s first 3D printed, continuous carbon fiber single-piece unibody frame for a new line of eBikes Franco will sell under the “Emery Bikes” brand.
The frames are in production now at AREVO’s new multi-purpose facility in Milpitas and this achievement with the Emery One represents several breakthroughs for bicycle manufacturers, with implications for other industries as well.
PHOTO DROP COURTESY AREVO
AREVO:
AREVO DNA™ technology is unique in the additive manufacturing (AM) world as it features patented software algorithms enabling generative design techniques, free-motion robotics for “True 3D” construction, and direct energy deposition for virtually void free constructional optimized for anisotropic composite materials.
Further a unibody bike frame construction uniquely enabled by AREVO technology is setting a new benchmark in high-performance bikes. The AREVO frame is made as a single part, in contrast to current composite frames, which are made of many parts glued together. With AREVO’s intelligent continuous carbon fiber placement, unprecedented structural integrity and stability are achieved.Finally, the AREVO DNA AM process takes the design and final manufacture of a bike frame from 18 months to just a few days at a significant reduction in product development costs.
Renowned industrial designer Bill Stephens of StudioWest collaborated with the AREVO and Franco teams to design the Emery One bike frame. “AREVO DNA offers a new paradigm for product designers, it forever changes how we can design and build anything,” said Mr. Stephens. “This technology allows us to push design boundaries in a way that was impossible until now. AREVO is changing the paradigm to ‘Manufacturing for Design’.”