Riding a bike with Simcenter

In 1817, Karl Drais kicked things off by creating the Draisine, considered the starting point for the concept of the bicycle. This invention revolutionized the way people got around using only their own body strength.

Since then, the evolution of bicycles has become heavily dependent on cutting-edge engineering. What characterizes today's great bicycles and components is the fact that they are the result of development processes based on rigorous simulations and testing. As in the automotive and aeronautical industries, virtual product development and advanced measurements have become fundamental to achieving superior performance, safety, and comfort in modern bicycles.

Ride faster – Aerodynamics CFD and the power of GPUs

Since the first Draisine a very obvious challenge in the improvement of bicycles was making them faster. Making a bicycle faster means less friction. And less friction means two things: First, lower mechanical friction in the drivetrain and between the wheels and the ground. And second, less air friction aka drag, which translates to better aerodynamics.

And while tight pants can only take us so far, for high performance racing machines, CFD simulation had to conquer the world of bicycle development to make them cut through the air as efficient as possible. And to design a faster bike faster, GPU-native CFD solver technology arrived just in time as Trek Bicycle impressively demonstrated for at the Tour de France 2024.

Ride more – Design space exploration

But meanwhile companies like Trek not just run a one-off CFD simulation to see how a design works and then fiddle around a little with another design. No, they run automated design exploration workflows to explore the performance of hundreds of designs (that’s when cloud-hosted HPC and GPU-accelerated CFD comes in quite handy). To give you an idea of the level of care that goes into today’s optimization of race bike aerodynamics: Trek identified the optimum position of the water bottles to minimize drag, identified the optimum rider position under varying wind conditions and found the optimum drafting configuration four a team of four riders.

On top these optimization studies are no longer only about one performance attribute. Taking it one step further, Trek looked at a multi-attribute optimization of aerodynamic performance and the weight of the frame.

Ride Safer – Helmet impact testing

SeIf you ride fast, you better ride safe. The good news is that helmets used today have improved significantly in terms of safety and comfort compared to those used in the past. This is thanks to continuous product improvement, novel materials and smart structural designs driven by homologation for certification and the customer desire for comfortable safety.

Siemens professionals perform high-speed video analysis, laser head positioning, and wireless data acquisition to provide highly accurate and repeatable helmet testing. Experts can even assess the level of protection a safety helmet can offer against brain injuries caused by critical rotational accelerations.

Ride cooler – Helmet aerodynamics and thermal comfort CFD

Safety is one thing, but if you are on a long ride (thermal) comfort is another. But just like with vehicles, when it comes to helmets there is this constant fight between aerodynamics and cooling. Luckily, todays engineers have advanced CFD simulation at their fingertips. Below are just a few examples of how fluid dynamics combined with heat transfer enable insights to find optimum solutions in the trade-off between thermal comfort and low drag of helmets.

Ride further – System simulation for ultra-lightweight hydraulic transmission

Whatever your personal feelings, the success of e-bikes is actually great news. For human beings, for this planet. A lot of people who would probably have never taken the bike, would have taken their car even for short distances, would have claimed they would have been sweated all-wet, had it not been for the development of the electric bicycle to change their minds. Above all the success of the e-bike was driven by innovation in battery technology. But also the electric motor design and even rethinking transmission systems made the e-bike an interesting playground for engineers.

Ride quieter – Harnessing Simcenter for testing e-bike acoustics

When it comes to e-bikes range is by far not the only thing in scope of engineers. Noise is equally. And as you cannot just make an e-bike dead silent it’s about creating acoustic comfort for the rider. And guess what, leading companies are heavily investing into these acoustic experiences. Take Trek Bicycles again, they are pioneering the concept of putting sound quality on the e-mountain bike metric map as it continues to be a hot topic in the industry. Likewise, MAHLE, who use Simcenter testing solutions to streamline e-bike drivetrain noise-vibration-harshness (NVH) analysis and for end-of-line testing.

Ride smoother- The grandfather of all comfort

Speaking of vibration, we can't help but mention this: It is probably the most underrated part on almost any modern bicycle. Just a little bit more than an inch long, this tiny little piece has saved billions of bicyler’s a#*s over the last 130 years. If it wasn’t for Scotsman Dunlop with his tiny little invention we would probably still be riding harsh full rubber tires. But thanks to the invention of the Dunlop bicycle valve from 1891 (US patent US455899), we can now happily inflate our tires and enjoy the pleasure of air damping. Now, if you claim to be a bike enthusiast, can you explain how such a valve actually works? No? Well, here’s a little Fluid-structure interaction simulation that may give you some insights you will remember the next time you have to pump it…

Ride braver – Simcenter for a safe low-drag monocoque wheel

Ok let’s shift gears again. And in cycling shifting gears always means let’s talk Carbon. In the competitive world of cycling, innovative engineering plays a crucial role. At the edge of technology marginal gains can be the difference between winning and losing. That’s the playing field for Radiate Engineering & Design AG. Radiate’s collaboration with Scott Sports led to developing the Syncros Capital SL, a wheelset that makes every bike enthusiast go quiet in awe.

The standout feature: “The Capital SL is a one-piece, or what we call monocoque, construction, meaning the rim and the spokes are fused together into a single piece,” says Frederic Poppenhäger, a partner at Radiate. This design enhances structural integrity and reduces rotational inertia, leading to better power transmission and substantial speed gains for riders. By running simulations, Radiate evaluated various rim shapes and geometries, optimizing for aerodynamics and structural performance without the immediate need for physical models. While Radiate reduced drag by 7 percent they also improved rider confidence and safety by ensuring greater stability in crosswinds. To enable a braver ride.

Ride together

---

Schedule a meeting with CAEXPERTS and discover how Simcenter solutions can transform bicycle development—from aerodynamics to comfort, safety to performance—taking your engineering to a new level of innovation.

Schedule a Meeting

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

WhatsApp: +55 (48) 98814-4798

E-mail: contato@caexperts.com.br