Jesse Cross talks about how lasers make it easier to bend steel into 3D shapes.
Dubbed “industrial origami”, this is a new technique for folding high-strength duplex stainless steel that could have a huge impact on car manufacturing. The process, called Lightfold, takes its name from the use of a laser to locally heat a stainless steel sheet along the desired fold line. Folding duplex stainless steel sheets typically uses expensive tools, but Swedish startup Stilride has developed this new process to produce low-cost electric scooters.
Industrial designer and Stilride co-founder Tu Badger has been eyeing the idea of ​​an inexpensive electric scooter since he was 19 in 1993. Beyer has since worked for Giotto Bizzarrini (father of the Ferrari 250 GTO and Lamborghini V12 engines), BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna. Funding from Swedish innovation agency Vinnova enabled Beyer to set up the company and get to work alongside co-founder and managing director Jonas Nyvang. The Lightfold idea was originally conceived by Finnish stainless steel manufacturer Outokumpu. Badger developed early work on the Lightfold, which robotically folds flat sheets of stainless steel to form the scooter’s main frame.
Stainless steel sheets are made by cold rolling, a process similar to thin dough rolling but on an industrial scale. Cold rolling hardens the material, making it difficult to bend. Using a laser to heat the steel along the intended fold line, with the utmost precision that a laser can provide, makes it easier to bend the steel into a three-dimensional shape.
Another great benefit of making a stainless steel structure is that it doesn’t rust, so it doesn’t have to be painted yet still looks good. Not painting (as Steelride does) reduces material costs, manufacturing, and possibly weight (depending on vehicle size). There are also design benefits. The folding process “creates a really defining design DNA,” Badger said, with “beautiful surface collisions between concave and convex.” Stainless steel is sustainable, fully recyclable and has a simple structure. The disadvantage of modern scooters, the designers note, is that they have a tubular steel frame covered with a plastic body, which consists of many parts and is difficult to manufacture.
The first scooter prototype, called the Stilride SUS1 (Sports Utility Scooter One), is ready and the company says it will “challenge conventional manufacturing thinking by using robotic industrial origami to fold flat metal structures to be true to the material.” “Properties and Geometric Properties”. The manufacturing side is in the process of being simulated by R&D firm Robotdalen and, once the process is established as commercially viable, is expected to be suitable for not only the electric scooter but also a wide range of products. The manufacturing side is in the process of being simulated by R&D firm Robotdalen and, once the process is established as commercially viable, is expected to be suitable for not only the electric scooter but also a wide range of products. The production side is in the process of being modeled by R&D firm Robotdalen and once the process is commercially viable, it is expected to be suitable not only for an electric scooter but for a wide range of products. The manufacturing aspect is being modeled by R&D company Robotdalen and once the process is determined to be commercially viable, it is expected to be applicable not only to e-scooters but to a range of products.
The project involved many employees with a wide range of expertise, including product development, steel design and manufacturing, with Outokumpu being a key player.
Duplex stainless steel is so named because its properties are a combination of two other types, “austenitic” and “ferritic”, which give it high tensile strength (tensile strength) and ease of welding. The 1980s DMC DeLorean was made from the widely used 304 austenitic stainless steel, which is a mixture of iron, nickel and chromium and is the most corrosion resistant of all stainless steels.