The 1960s must have been a fantastic time to be around race engines. The incredible diversity of engines in a single class is one reason I’m drawn to events where racing motorcycles from this era are wheeled out, started and ridden as they should be, at great risk to their owners’ bank accounts. If you have a passion for race engines, you should treat your eyes and ears to something special. Many of these engines used roller bearing crankshafts, where either the main bearings,...
When I was a schoolboy, during mathematics lessons on the subject of ‘long division’ I always remember being told that two into one doesn’t go. The rules of mathematics were something to be followed without question, but these days of course I now know differently. Because when it comes to electronic sensors, particularly when weight or space is the concern or for safety-critical applications, then two into one certainly does go. The most obvious example of this is when two...
It is said sometimes that engine engineers can ‘feel’ their engine working, and when it is not running properly then they can suffer a lot of stress in resolving that. Would they know that the engines themselves can also suffer internal stress? Designers of complex castings are familiar with internal stresses in engine blocks and heads. The reason for these stresses is the fact that the solidification of the material is not homogeneous throughout the part, leading to internal...
The 2013 season of MotoGP promises to be very exciting, with the prospect of seeing Valentino Rossi on very competitive machinery alongside MotoGP debutant Marc Marquez compensating to an extent for Casey Stoner’s retirement. The top class of motorcycle racing is for four-stroke machines up to 1000 cc, having a maximum of four cylinders; previously the maximum engine capacity had been 800 cc. The increase in engine capacity and the 25% increase in torque has helped improve the...
Fastener design is a critical area of any highly stressed machine operating with cyclic loads. Reciprocating internal combustion engines are an extreme example of this; there are a lot of bolted joints which are very highly loaded. Engine design engineers therefore need to pay close attention to the design and engineering of their fasteners. The rate at which load cycles are accumulated means that design mistakes are generally swiftly punished. The design engineer might be mistaken for...