This car was at SEMA and features 19 inch lightweight graphite wheels. Is graphite strong enough to support a car like that (especially during hard turns)?

Also, what wheels are those and do those come in 17's and fit a wrx?

 

Those look like the new Konig Lightweight rims but they are only graphite paint. they are aluminum aloy, see the polished lip.

 

Konigs are pretty low-end wheels... I doubt someone would do all that work to a car and then slap on a pair of $200 Discount Tire specials. Those do look like Konig Imagines, but those only come in Silver and Opal.

That is the hottest damn Volvo I've ever seen, however. Although the stolen BMW headlamps and the hood vents are pushing it into rice-y territory. That model has a 5-cylinder engine (yes, you read that correctly!).

 

Not the Konig Image but the Networks.

 

Guess the rims are three peice made by Evolve. Def not Konig's

 

That's HRE. Go to:

www.hrewheels.com

...and all HRE's are super expensive (forged aluminum)!

It's just an anodizing process to get that color. And by the way, graphite has exceptional stress characteristics (depending on manufacturing process).

 

Cool, Looks like the 840R with hidden hardware. Right at $1600 each.

 

i must be blind....1600 ea.

 

HRE's are no joke. The shop I used to go to and my friends worked/owned sold those. I've seen people drop over $5k on those and another $10k on a body kit and paint at the same time on brand new stinkin cars. Wish I had change like that. The 5 series bmw I nearly bought had those for a while.

Love love love HRE's. Just not in my price range to even look at.

Graphite for wheels I have no clue. But I know I don't like graphite bats. I busted one one and it wasn't fun. Crap flew all over the place...just exploded. I would fear that with a graphite wheel. Metal bends and sometimes bends to brakes but they don't explode. Just imagine what would happen if you hit something wrong or had a previous flaw in the wheel unknown...hit a corner and a dang wheel exploded on you. It wouldn't be easy to stay right side up.

 

We had this discussion in another thread earlier and reached the same conclusion. I've actually watched someone's mountain bike seatpost explode just as you described -- imagine picking carbon fiber splinters out of your thighs while spending the rest of the night sitting on an ice pack...

 

you'll see graphite motorcycle wheels... but i havnt seen car wheels

 

Race motorcycles are about 1/2 the weight of even the lightest car, closer to 1/3.

 

It's really not a load bearing issue with carbon/graphite composites. Becuase of the poor strain (ability to deform without breaking) and high stress (load property) the materials generally have poor toughness. Toughness is the area under the stress/strain curve, which gives indications of it's fatigue properties. This all leads up to a material that will fracture/fail suddenly, and usually give no indication of damage. Sounds pretty bad for a car wheel, huh? At the moment, carbon/graphite composite processing techniques do not have the ability to impart better strain properties AFAIK, so for the moment you will not see is used as a marterial being used in street wheels. By the way, yes I am a Materials Engineer. Someone may be using it for race wheels (if you replace the rim after every race, who cares).

I think a better way to go for building a light, strong street wheel would be to start with metal matrix composites. These have shown excellent fatigue properties (compared to graphite/carbon), they will gernerally show signs of failure (cracks and such), and can be made using investment cast molding which makes the processing cheap. I believe people have begun using ceramic/magnesium composites for F1 already, can someone else verify this?

 

aluminum alloy does deform before they fail, and carbon just break once they reach their ultimate strength(US).
but the thing is, carbon has about 4x US than aluminum alloy, so in case of inpact, if a carbon wheel gonna shatter, the chance of aluminum that won't break is close to impossible.