That kid Alex Porter is unlucky but his bike accident is typical of how carbon fibre or some 3D additive manufactured titanium will fail. This reduced reliability is the price paid for wanting the very lightest parts made from the strongest materials. Weight reduction is always a trade off with strength.
If I had a choice, I'd choose 3D Titanium over Carbon Fibre, as long as the 3D Titanium is made by people who know what they are doing.
I suspect the problem will be a inclusion or void type defect in the build, which has caused a crack to form and the crack then propagates through the body of the part. Titanium tends to not fail so catastrophically you would feel it start to give, bend then snap. Carbon fibre can shatter like glass failing almost explosively.
Down at Deakin near Geelong they have advanced carbon fibre techniques developed for forming car chassis and automotive wheels that are supposed to prevent/reduce sudden catastrophic failures, but I do not know anyone doing this for cycling. Supercars like McLaren, fighter planes and F1 race cars maybe, not even sure it's used for local touring cars the price is too high.
I know CSIRO made a special bike for one of our Olympic Athletes in years gone by, Anna Meares used one in her last campaign, that was titanium 3D printed using a scaffold technique developed by the Victorian Direct Manufacturing Centre, not sure the current Olympic suppliers use or license those techniques, they are also patented.
Oddly, the bike that failed had a rather unusual organic design for a 3D titanium part, some of this comes out of a design method called FEA.
If I had a choice, I'd choose 3D Titanium over Carbon Fibre, as long as the 3D Titanium is made by people who know what they are doing.
I suspect the problem will be a inclusion or void type defect in the build, which has caused a crack to form and the crack then propagates through the body of the part. Titanium tends to not fail so catastrophically you would feel it start to give, bend then snap. Carbon fibre can shatter like glass failing almost explosively.
Down at Deakin near Geelong they have advanced carbon fibre techniques developed for forming car chassis and automotive wheels that are supposed to prevent/reduce sudden catastrophic failures, but I do not know anyone doing this for cycling. Supercars like McLaren, fighter planes and F1 race cars maybe, not even sure it's used for local touring cars the price is too high.
I know CSIRO made a special bike for one of our Olympic Athletes in years gone by, Anna Meares used one in her last campaign, that was titanium 3D printed using a scaffold technique developed by the Victorian Direct Manufacturing Centre, not sure the current Olympic suppliers use or license those techniques, they are also patented.
Oddly, the bike that failed had a rather unusual organic design for a 3D titanium part, some of this comes out of a design method called FEA.
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"