Koenigsegg One:1 carbon fiber wheels

  • May 2, 2014
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The Koenigsegg One:1 is a technological marvel when it comes to lightweight car building. We focus on the wheels that have been crafted almost entirely from carbon fiber!

Koenigsegg One:1

When building a supercar that can hit 320kmph, the basic ingredient is simple, a large displacement motor producing bonkers amount of power and a lightweight body so the power to weight ratio is as high as possible. So when Koenigsegg decided that they wanted to build a hypercar with an unheard power-to-weight ratio of 1:1 and a top whack of 440kmph, the stakes were high, very high indeed. The engine bit was dealt away first as they tinkered with the Agera’s 5.0-litre V8 powerplant to produce an eye-popping 1340bhp or 1358PS; half the work was done. The next step was to build a body that should also tip the scale at just 1340kg and for this the Swedish car manufacturer turned towards carbon fiber in achieving their goal. Also Read: Koenigsegg Agera One:1 unleashed at Geneva Motor Show

But while they crafted almost the entire body of the One:1 from carbon fiber, they found out that the lightest wheels available in the market were forged aluminium rims, which were still heavy given the target Swedish carmaker set out to achieve. At this juncture, Christian Koenigsegg, the founder of the hypercar manufacturer decided that they will build wheels crafted from carbon fiber. One of the main reasons that no other manufacturer built carbon fiber wheels was that the wheels have to undergo tremendous amount of stresses and the wheels which were manufactured had the tendency to crack if they hit a bump or while cornering at high speeds.

Koenigsegg One:1 carbon fiber wheels

To address this issue, Koenigsegg employed pre-peg carbon fiber, which is the highest grade of this exotic material and is used in Formula 1 cars, spaceships and fighter jets. Since the amount of stress isn’t same at every section of the wheel, the thickness of the carbon fiber layer varies depending on the need. From their tests, Koenigsegg found out that the barrel area of the wheel undergoes the most amount of stress and had the tendency to flex under high speed cornering. To overcome this flaw, the barrel area of the wheel was made the stiffest and strongest. Another interesting bit about the wheels is that the spokes and the centre section of the carbon fiber wheel are hollow.

Koenigsegg One:1 carbon fiber wheels image

Christian Koenigsegg has applied for a patent for this process and hence hasn’t divulged any details on how they accomplished this amazing feat of engineering. The only metal bit used on the wheels is the valve and to balance the wheel, designers have thickened the spoke opposite the valve. All this bit of brain storming has benefited Koenigsegg as the rim weighs just 5.9kg each, which is 40 per cent less than a similarly sized forged aluminium wheel.

One of the main concerns with the carbon fiber wheels was that whether they will be able to withstand the tremendous amount of heat generated while braking, as the One:1 can brake from 300-0kmph in just 6.6 seconds! For this purpose, the wheel are coated with a high strength expoxy solution that undergoes an after treatment process to endure high amount of heat. According to Koenigsegg apart from being lightweight, the carbon fiber wheels also have aided in improving the handling of the car. Another astonishing aspect of the carbon fiber wheel is that as state-of-the art it sounds, the carbon fiber wheels are almost handmade.

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