What is Carbotecture?
In the sensitive motorcycle and bicycle industries, MAGURA stands for the highest possible quality, solid reliability and mature components from its in-house production in Germany. In developing special materials and processes such as Carbotecture® and Carbolay®, we have realized designs and constructions that no other manufacturer can implement. We have also established an extremely effective quality assurance system at our Hülben and Hengen production and assembly sites near the original factory in Bad Urach. MAGURA brakes are light, very stable and function reliably for many years – and we realize these features with several plastics that we develop ourselves. However, Carbotecture is definitely not just a “plastic” – it is so much more!
We see ourselves as the architects of our materials – and the term Carbotecture® is a combination of the terms carbon and architecture. Here is a brief explanation of how we create our basic Carbotecture® material: First of all, a mixture of high-tech polymers and carbon or glass fibres is converted into a plastic granulate by means of several complex processes. During the processing from the granulate to the finished component, the carbon fibres are then optimally aligned to match future stress requirements. This “Carboflow” process can create any desired shape from the granulate during an injection moulding process. Carbotecture® offers major advantages compared to classic lightweight aluminium – for example, it’s 50% lighter, but it possesses the same tensile and breaking strength! Thanks to our highly developed machines and processes, Carbotecture® is indeed a dream material, from which smooth surfaces can be created in almost any complex shape – and this is also how we make our rigid yet lightweight brake masters. BMW also relies on the special properties of Carbotecture® for its motorcycles – the clutch master of the BMW GS is also made of this material, for instance.
We increase the resistance of our Carbotecture SL® material by integrating medium-length carbon fibres into the polyamides instead of short fibres – and this also reduces the weight of the material. The brake masters of our award-winning MT disc brake series are made of Carbotecture® and Carbotecture SL®.
Yet another of our materials is Carbolay®. It is produced in a fully automated procedure, during which a textile process is used to position the carbon fibres according to load. The fibres are then automatically impregnated with resin in a mould. This process enables us to produce Carbolay® lever blades in an attractive and ergonomically optimized form – and the blades also achieve perfect finger force transmission thanks to their high degree of rigidity and low weights.