Motorcycle chassis stiffness testing

Alta Motors, 2018

Alta Motors sought a method of testing and quantifying the stiffness of their motorcycles, as well as competitors’ products, as a real-world complement to existing finite element methods.

Actions:

I reviewed literature on the subject of motorcycle chassis stiffness, then designed testing fixtures so as to duplicate the testing methodologies outlined in the literature. I developed a Python calculator utility to process the complex linear algebra equations needed to parametrize the stiffness characteristics based on plane data gathered from optical laser sensors.

Results:

The tests I developed allowed for benchmarking of competitors’ products. This data, and the characterization of Alta’s own products, was to influence the design of an upcoming Alta Motors motorcycle chassis.

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