With the development of the times, everything is progressing. Small vehicle rims are also constantly developing towards aesthetics and practicality. Recently, many riders are discussing who is better between steel rims and aluminum alloy rims. Let's take a deep dive into this topic!

The jump of the wheel
Differences in wheel base materials
As can be seen from the names of the two, the source material used for the steel rim is steel, and the aluminum alloy rim uses aluminum. There's even an iron rim.
Steel itself has very good durability. The most widely used in my country are heavy-duty vehicles and construction vehicles. In the field of electric two-wheelers, mid-range models will be used.

steel wheel
High-end and top-of-the-line electric vehicles will use aluminum alloy wheels. Aluminum alloys have very good thermal conductivity. Secondly, the dead weight of aluminum alloy is much lower than that of steel ring and iron ring. Drivers can get better handling and comfort experience. Finally, aluminum alloys are able to create a lot of beautifully shaped rims thanks to their detached plasticity.

Aluminum alloy multi-spoke wheels
So, are rim wheels useless? In traditional electric bicycles, there are still many iron rings (commonly made of ductile iron, gray iron and other materials). The biggest advantage of this type of rim is its low cost, low process requirements and low replacement cost.

Vintage Iron Wheels
In addition to aluminum alloy, steel, and iron materials, there are also racing-grade rims that are used in a smaller range - carbon fiber rims. Carbon fiber rims tend to move by tens of thousands, so the comparison will not be included here.

Differences in the manufacturing process of rims
The manufacturing process of rims involves a lot, such as forging, stamping, spinning, welding, die casting, CNC cutting and so on. In terms of material, it can be roughly divided into the following categories.

stamped rolled steel
The manufacture of steel hubs is divided into two parts, the web and the rim. Under normal circumstances, the web is formed only once by the stamping process.

Steel wheel details
In the second step, the prepared steel plate is pressed into a deep groove rim (a common section of electric wheel hubs) with a roll forming machine. Then weld the rim to the web.

Cast aluminum wheels
As the name suggests, it is a kind of wheel hub that is cooled and formed by melting aluminum alloy raw material and injecting it into a prepared mold. There are also different casting processes of gravity casting, low pressure casting, and squeeze casting. The quality ranking achieved by different processes is roughly, gravity casting is the best, followed by low pressure casting and squeeze casting. The time cost is also the highest in gravity casting.


CNC cut aluminum alloy wheels
CNC cutting process, suitable for small-scale mass production of wheels, common in personalized customized products.

The manufacturing process is relatively cumbersome. By inputting the hub data into the CNC lathe, the lathe can be cut and formed on the hub blank. CNC can realize the manufacture of multi-spoke, heavy-spoke, special-shaped and other hubs.


CNC CNC machining

expensive spinning wheel
Strictly speaking, this manufacturing process combines both casting and CNC manufacturing processes. Through the continuous rotation of the rolled hub blank, the air bubbles and molecular gaps in the aluminum alloy blank are continuously reduced, so that the toughness of the hub is stronger. When the spinning reaches an appropriate level, CNC is used to cut out the shape. Generally, these wheels are lighter than ordinary aluminum alloy wheels, have better rigidity after cooling, and have higher thermal conductivity.

Performance difference between steel and aluminum wheels
Vehicles running at high speed have very high requirements on the dynamic balance of the wheels. The more consistent and lighter the wheel hub, the better the performance. Therefore, under high-speed conditions, spinning-made aluminum wheels rank the highest, followed by CNC aluminum wheels, cast aluminum wheels, steel wheels, and iron wheels.

Rim maintenance cost variance
Electric motorcycles are matched with tires and wheels before leaving the factory, even at high speed, to reduce the possibility of jitter caused by uneven dynamic balance (after replacing tires, it is recommended to do dynamic balance). The aluminum alloy wheels are kept clean and dry on a daily basis, and maintenance is simple. It is lighter than steel and iron wheels, and brings less shock absorption and less power loss.

Iron wheels need to be cleaned frequently, check the damage of the protective paint surface of the wheel hub, and repair the paint in time to prevent rust and corrosion. Because the steel wheel is too rigid, it is recommended to pay attention to whether the tire sidewall is bruised and bulged after passing through the pit. Therefore, aluminum alloy wheels are relatively better than steel wheels and iron wheels in terms of later maintenance.

summary
There are many differences between wheels of different materials, and the effects brought by the use are also different. These depend on material, manufacturing process and cost. Different practical effects can be obtained through various wheel hubs made of different materials and processes. All in all, it is not possible to judge the quality of the wheel just by looking at the material, and it cannot be denied that the current aluminum alloy wheel is the result of social development.
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