Case Study: Trek Bicycles achieves field-accurate load simulation and improved bike performance testing with Dassault Systèmes (SIMULIA Abaqus)

Trek Bicycles - Customer Case Study

Trek Bicycles, a leading consumer bike manufacturer, wanted to expand realistic simulation across multiple bike programs to better understand how professional racers’ extreme stunts load their frames. To meet that challenge Trek used Dassault Systemes’ SIMULIA Abaqus together with the True‑Load add-on to capture and analyze real-world field loads and compare them to laboratory tests.

Using Abaqus and True‑Load, Trek instrumented bikes with strain gauges, accelerometers and an on-board DAS, then back‑calculated load‑time histories to produce simulated strains that matched measured strains to within about 2%. Dassault Systemes’ SIMULIA solution gave Trek clear, measurable insight into extreme-use loading, enabled targeted changes to lab testing and design (avoiding over‑design), and scaled the capability enterprise‑wide to improve product performance across its bike platforms.

Trek Bicycles

Jay Maas

Analysis Engineer