High performance motorcycles wheels loading spectra estimation

In motorcycle competition, as well as in many other industry sectors, the request of tools always faster and reliable is an essential requirement, in order to provide products and components at the forefront of technology and high production quality as soon as possible. In this research thesis, a high-efficiency methodology to extract the loads spectra of racing motorcycle wheels is proposed. At the basis of this study, a model to estimate the lateral and longitudinal forces through only the measurement of the vertical load of both wheels and the camber angle is provided. This work involves statistical analysis of race data, data filtering, power spectral density (PSD), averaging data reduction in order to generate a representative fatigue spectrum from experimental data. The derived spectrum following this approach contains information of not only the number of occurrences of each load factors but also their corresponding exposure time and represent all the possible load fluctuation experienced in the specific service life . A subsequent fatigue life extrapolation, throughout a rainflow analysis, is then carried out in order to provide a fast and reliable prediction of the cycle counting that the structure is subjected for longer runs.