Bike manufacturer AERO’s latest prototype features a wooden frame, not exactly what you would expect given the structural challenges wood faces when it comes to bicycles.
However, AERO’s intention with their new prototype is to better understand how thin wooden sheets can be used to build stronger buildings.
Architects Martino Hutz, Atanas Zhelev, and Mariya Korolova built the wood-framed bike as an experiment, so-to-speak, which they can continuously monitor.
Zhelev tells Deezen that, “The bicycle is perfect to test how wooden structures work in different scales with different loads.”
The bike frame itself is composed of millimeter-thick sheets of birch wood glued together into strips, called lamellas.
The natural fibers of each lamella were aligned to enhance the structure’s overall strength, an idea that the researchers have found greatly increased flexibility and overall durability compared to traditional wood-based building materials.
