Challenge:
In its ongoing race to advance bike performance, Trek wanted to expand the use of realistic simulation in their design cycle across multiple bike programs. In particular, Trek engineers wanted to better understand how bikes performed under the real-world stunt rides of its professional racers.
Solution:
By pairing SIMULIA’s Abaqus with the TrueLoad add-on, Trek engineers could set up a test environment that quantified the loads created in the field during extreme scenarios so they could compare that data to current lab results to determine whether they needed to develop new tests or modify existing ones.
Benefits:
Simulation provided new insights into the loading environment during extreme- use cases that will help Trek take its bikes to the next level of performance without over designing. The larger Trek engineering group can now tap into these capabilities and leverage field data to improve lab testing processes and enhance product performance across the enterprise.
Whether you’re an avid mountain biker or a road-riding enthusiast, the challenge is to go farther, climb higher, land that perfect jump, and pedal faster—all in the spirit of nailing that next level of performance.
The engineering team at Trek Bicycles embraces the same mantra, not just on the bike trail, but in research and development with simulation. What started out as a casual jaunt into simulation territory to analyze the occasional composite structure evolved into a rigorous exercise across all their bike programs—once Trek engineers got a taste for how the methodology raises the bar on design optimization.
For a culture steeped in hard-driving performance, it wasn’t much of a stretch for Trek’s design engineers to extend their passion for biking to the immersive 3D experience of simulation.
Want to learn more?
Discover how Trek leverages simulation to model the toughest riding scenarios that push performance to the next level!
