Titanium has long been the material of choice for high-end bicycle frames, valued for its light weight, high strength, and corrosion resistance. Yet as demand grows for lightweight construction, innovative design, and rapid production, conventional processes such as casting and welding are increasingly constrained by long tooling lead times, high machining costs, and limited design flexibility.
For companies like Hi-Light Titanium Bicycles, which specialize in customized production for the global high-end market, adopting a more agile and efficient manufacturing approach is key to maintaining competitiveness and accelerating innovation.
In response to these challenges, HBD Additive Manufacturing has partnered with Hi-Light to integrate industrial-grade metal 3D printing into titanium bicycle production. Leveraging its expertise in equipment, software, and materials, HBD is helping drive titanium bike manufacturing into a new era of innovation.
Geometric Freedom — From Manufacturing Constraints to Function-Driven Design
Traditional manufacturing methods are limited by tooling and welding constraints, making it difficult to achieve highly integrated structures. HBD’s advanced metal 3D printing technology—combined with topology optimization and simulation analysis—empowers designers with unprecedented freedom to create and innovate.
Lightweight & High Strength: By leveraging lattice structures and thin-wall optimization, this technology enables significant weight reduction without compromising strength, unlocking breakthrough advancements in lightweight frame design.
Integrated Structure: Complex assemblies that traditionally require multiple welded components can now be produced as a single, seamless structure, enhancing overall stiffness, reliability, and design precision.
Aerodynamic Optimization: Streamlined geometries and concealed cable routing can be realized with ease, drastically reducing aerodynamic drag and meeting the extreme performance demands of high-speed bicycles.
Agile Manufacturing — Powering Customization at Scale
The HBD 400 delivers exceptional printing efficiency and stability, reducing production lead times by more than 50% compared with traditional methods. Its multi-laser production capability allows different components to be manufactured simultaneously within a single build, enabling Hi-Light to fulfill customized orders from over 100 global clients in parallel.
This transformation—from a sequential “order queue” to true “parallel production”—has significantly accelerated product innovation and market validation.
This successful collaboration demonstrates how HBD’s metal additive manufacturing technology delivers tangible value in real-world production. The partnership between HBD and Hi-Light Titanium Bicycles goes beyond equipment adoption—it represents a strategic move toward flexible, digital, and high-efficiency manufacturing.
Moving forward, HBD will continue to deepen its industry application development and collaborate with pioneering leaders across sectors to expand the boundaries of metal additive manufacturing—driving industrial transformation through continuous process innovation.
