Title: The effect of swingarm stiffness on motorcycle stability: experimental measurements and numerical simulations

Authors: Luca Taraborrelli; Valerio Favaron; Alberto Doria

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131, Padova, Italy ' Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131, Padova, Italy ' Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131, Padova, Italy

Abstract: This paper focuses on the effect of swingarm deformability on motorcycle stability and in particular on the weave mode. Multibody models for the analysis of stability and handling of single track vehicles require a lumped element representation of the deformability of the critical structural elements of the vehicle. The twist axis method is used to identify lumped stiffness and damping elements able to represent bending and torsion deformability of the swingarm. Experimental tests and identification results dealing with two different swingarms are presented. The identified lumped stiffness and damping elements are implemented in a multibody code and some numerical stability analyses are carried out. Calculated results show that swingarm deformability has a small effect on the stability of super sport motorcycles, whereas the stability of the weave mode of enduro motorcycles is affected by swingarm deformability in a specific range of speeds.

Keywords: motorcycle; swingarm; weave; stability; twist axis; identification; stiffness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVSMT.2017.089981

International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 2017 Vol.12 No.3/4, pp.240 - 261

Received: 11 Oct 2016
Accepted: 13 Sep 2017
Published online: 26 Feb 2018 *

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