Moto2 Carbonfibre bike

[aleks_ader]

Brough Superior unveiled a new race bike. Debuting at the Petersen Museum reveled its intentions to race in the Moto2 Championship.


Constructed for Brough Superior in the Los Angeles . British design but built in the U.S by workshops of TaylorMade Racing. The new bike has been jointly developed for Brough by Taylor and UK-based designer John Keogh, who worked with Buell on creating the Firebolt and other models.

Name, mark: Taylormade Carbon2 Btw. who is Taylormade Racing? Taylormade racing based in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, USA, is a specialist in innovative design and manufacture of carbon-fibre components, to Formula One standards. It is a discreet supplier to the Yamaha, Honda and Buell race teams as well as producing its own range of hi-tech exhaust mufflers for street bikes, which have attracted much attention for their light weight and integrated design.


Tech goods:

1. -Obvious Moto2 spec engine: Honda CBR 600, 4 cyl

1. -unique carbon fiber composite chassis that integrates the fuel tank and bodywork in a single monocoque fabrication – "fuel inside chassis" => thus cutting weight while increasing overall stiffness.

1. -rear carbon fiber swingarm + Penske shocks

1. -high front 43mm in diameter fork tubes=>more space => less obstructions for cooling air

1. -CofG placed vertical narrow fuel tank (almost behind engine) => lover "splashing" and fuel drop efects=> better race pace

1. -rear tail-sectioned radiators look picture below (KLIK for enlarge pictures )

Nice CFD pic, Nice view into low pressure zones behind exit of the rads and also steady flow around sides of windshields...


Look Moto3 bike..?! Oh no! Damm it so narrow..

As chassis designers, this was a very exciting prospect (Moto2)...
...with the Brough Superior Moto2 we hope to prove to teams that thinking outside the box, combined with rigorous testing
and development, can deliver a competitive advantage.

Really nice neat design. Maybe nowadys are manufactures a little to much conservative and they stick "old" ways how to construct proper ride friendly bike. I m looking foward to it and let see how it goes on the test track...

Test rider Former AMA racer and factory Buell racer Shawn Higbee has been developing the bike on track, and says:

It's very narrow, so that's one advantage,” “And also very light and agile. But the thing that stands out most is the
way it absorbs bumps even when you're trail-braking very late and very hard into a turn, because the front end has such little stiction when the bike is leaned over. With a conventional telescopic fork, when you get a full lean and the forks get twisted and bound with lateral forces, they don't work as good as they normally should – but on this bike the front keeps right on working well. It gives you an awful lot of confidence to attack the corners at full lean even with the brakes hard on. It has so much potential once you get your head around the different things it'll do that a conventional bike will not.

It a shame it doesnt have Akrapovič exhaust systems..





ALERT!!!Its NOT Brough Superior picture!!! I just added for comparison how different looks conventional Moto2 bike around frames, engine and its ancillary. There is no doubt how immense reconstruction must take place on this bike. Even if we think how effective you must work to achieve proper compromise between required empty space for tunnel and reservoir tanks etc. this is completely different philosophy. Interestingly how they played with mass redistributions. Putting some weight foward (engine) and bacwards (rads). Like those changes was not big enough, then made step further and even loose some of it (carbon fiber). Nice gambling design! Of course it is nothing new on the "race" or conventional marked, but they combine all ideas in 1 BIG "revolutionry" beast!!! =D>


NICE FOCUS PIC: really nice reading...



Sources: LINK 1, LINK 2, Magazine Cycle News Vol 50 issue 34

[tok-tokkie]

The forks are novel. Variation on the Hossack forks used by BMW but the legs are conventional Honda legs with springs & dampers inside but the brake forces are taken through the A frame lower link so the fork springs don't have to carry the brake forces.
I like the positioning of the radiator - reminiscent of the Britten. Give free air path through the bike effectively reducing the frontal area & getting a nice low pressure on the downstream side of the radiator for good airflow.

[Tommy Cookers]

The forks are novel. Variation on the Hossack forks used by BMW but the legs are conventional Honda legs with springs & dampers inside but the brake forces are taken through the A frame lower link so the fork springs don't have to carry the brake forces.

....... IMO .......
it seems that this machine has a substantial amount of anti-dive geometry in its front suspension
(though without the steering geometry deficiencies characteristic of hub-centre steering)
no other MotoGP or Moto anything machine has this, they primarily resist dive by manipulating the springing and/or damping ??
which may be inadequate now that we have such a high level of combined cornering and braking (aka trail braking) ?
the designers of the featured machine must think so

both braking and cornering forces tend to bind telescopic forks by increasing friction
(so will impede the suspension action at large angles of lean)
this effect has not been reduced ?
anti-dive (or even pro-dive) effects can come according to the geometry of the brake torque reaction load path
but no such geometry will eliminate the binding tendency ?
(and anti-dive is already achieved via suspension geometry)

[hollus]

I can't avoid thinking that the radiator position will create some downforce. I remember reading that Honda played with downforce on bikes some years ago only to conclude it was not worth it.
I can see how in the corners it would push you out (but also push the tire on the tarmac, does that balance out?). Traction is limited on acceleration while the bike is still leaning, so the same there, but downforce should really help under braking, which is largely done while vertical, which is also when the speed is highest (at least at the beginning).
Does anybody know why downforce doesn't help in motorbikes? Increase in general drag? Just cornering effects? Tire life? Changing bike behavior? Too much exposed body?

[Tommy Cookers]

as you say DF has a no benefit to cornering (and must increase drag)
its improvement to contact load and so to centripetal force (cornering) is exactly cancelled by its increase in outwards force

unless you could have something like a V wing (like a V tail as in earlier Bonanzas)

[hollus]

But you are suggesting it has no downside either while cornering... so that still leaves braking performance vs increased drag. I guess the latest decides?

[Tommy Cookers]

nominally there is no downside (certainly there is a DF element in modern fairings, to reduce the reduction in front load with speed)

I think that the whole situation is a can of worms for other reasons anyway
even existing bikes act as 'lifting bodies' at big lean angles and from this must generate lift or DF or both in a corner
though powersliding or drift gives a favourable AoA ie generates inwards/downwards aero force

btw when they say that a bike is leaning 62deg is this actual bike lean or the combined mean rider and bike lean from processing ?

[wesley123]

Didn't Ducati do a carbon frame already a few years ago? If my mind remembers correctly(that is, if it even happened at all) Ducati opted against it because it was too stiff. What has changed here?

[andylaurence]

Downforce relative to the bike will increase grip, but also push the bike to the outside of the corner. The net result is increased tyre wear. Where things get interesting is if downforce can be generated in the attitude presented at the corner. If they cornered like a speedway bike, could the bike (or parts of it) be shaped to act as a wing? How would it affect the rider's balance? Porpoising would high-side the bike!

[aleks_ader]

Didn't Ducati do a carbon frame already a few years ago? If my mind remembers correctly(that is, if it even happened at all) Ducati opted against it because it was too stiff. What has changed here?

Ducati use it, but with one exception. They use it like for repalcemend for convencional tubin design. What taht mean. They still had seperatly tank design + modified engine block (like Chapman deign, where engine suport other parts or chasiss).

Thic Brough design in quiete an a upgrade. They combine tank + chasiss in 1 unit. They get very stiff and light clean design.

On the bikes to much stiffess could couse big probles in many cases undrivable bike (lean conditions) in the cornenigs etc. Anyway overall stiffess of carbon chasis it is in my opinion today less problem. Cuz the knowlege about construction of right prepreg carbon fiber advanced significally. If we knew how F1 team (expecially RB) use that knowlege for any aero & mechanical poupuoses (for exaple FW flex) you could aplied that also in the bikes.

[Tommy Cookers]

Ducati use it, but with one exception. They use it like for repalcemend for convencional tubin design. What taht mean. They still had seperatly tank design + modified engine block (like Chapman deign, where engine suport other parts or chasiss).

On the bikes to much stiffess could couse big probles in many cases undrivable bike (lean conditions) in the cornenigs etc. Anyway overall stiffess of carbon chasis it is in my opinion today less problem. Cuz the knowlege about construction of right prepreg carbon fiber advanced significally. If we knew how F1 team (expecially RB) use that knowlege for any aero & mechanical poupuoses (for exaple FW flex) you could aplied that also in the bikes.

the Vincent motorcycle used the power unit as the main structure with the front and rear suspension bolted on and won many races (ask John Surtees)

F1 teams have tailored the properties of crc structures to develop under aero load advantageous deformations that escaped the naive stiffness testing of the regulators
this tailoring was known to aviation for decades previously
F1 and aviation knew well what deformations under aero load they wanted and why (going back to 1917 aviation)

some in motorcycle racing are trying (unsuccessfully) to make structures that compensate for the limitations of telescopic forks
because of the commercial need always to have machines that look just as expected ? (do the rules force this approach ??)
Mr Surtees said that leaning the motorcycle tyre and suspension through eg 60deg was a fundamental limitation
250 hp and related tyre design helps avoid the issue (making worthwhile sacrifice of apex speed for acceleration)
but do we really believe that the crc frame can do the suspension's job ?, it appears that from Ducati's MotoGP that it can't

[Reca]

Didn't Ducati do a carbon frame already a few years ago? If my mind remembers correctly(that is, if it even happened at all) Ducati opted against it because it was too stiff. What has changed here?

Indeed, from '09 to '11 the Ducati frame was a carbon box.
The peculiar part of these years' design though wasn't much in the material used, but on the general layout of the bike (when, in 2011, Valentino Rossi was bitching about carbon frame being the issue, Ducati's first move was to change the material of the box, from carbon to aluminum, but keeping same bike layout).

Unlike a "normal" bike where you have a frame connecting the front fork with the rear swing arm, and on which the engine is then inserted, the Ducati GP9->11 had the engine as fully stressed member (till '08, with the tubular frame it was semi-stressed), the carbon frame was basically a hollow box (thus also working as airbox) mounted on the engine heads:


At the front of the box was mounted the fork while the rear swing arm (that could be either carbon or aluminum, they used them both in different occasions) and the rear "frame" with seat and tail were both mounted directly on the engine:


The big downside of that layout (at least IMO) is that with the engine becoming basically the main structure of the bike, it lacks the adaptability typical of the traditional layout, where the engine (heaviest component) can be moved/rotated around a bit to adjust weight distribution adapting it to different needs of riders/tracks/tyres.
Same operation with the Ducati layout demands lot more work and has bigger impact on the whole structure, thus basically eliminating a potentially very useful setup tool, which is a relevant disadvantage in particular in the era of a single tyre supplier (which works mainly for needs of Honda...)

[tok-tokkie]

The Vincent had a vestigial frame. Here is an unkind picture. Bolted on top of the cylinder heads was a box girder that served as the oil tank, steering was attached to front & rear shock to the back (disconnected in the picture - in fact the oil tank is disconnected & placed too far forwards - just for the picture I assume. Notice how long a lever the kick start has.
In the 60s I had a Vincent. Sadly the single cylinder 500 - just the front cylinder.


The Britten was a home made bike from the mid 90s. Home made engine including the castings. Carbon fibre everywhere including the front & rear forks. Front suspension was double wishbone. Radiator under the seat. Very interestingly the rear suspension shock was in front of the engine with a pull link under the engine. Incredibly he also made those carbon fibre wheels himself.

Unlike this Moto2 bike there was no carbon fibre frame really, the suspension & steering bolted to the engine which was the main load bearing item.

EDIT: Switched the Vincent to first. Makes more sense in revised sequence.

[aleks_ader]

I can't avoid thinking that the radiator position will create some downforce. I remember reading that Honda played with downforce on bikes some years ago only to conclude it was not worth it.

Maybe link about Honda?

By the way really nice posts chaps! Nice and educating reading...

[nacho]

I think unconventional designs need help from tire makers (tire competition) and riders who have the ability relearn riding. Until then not many are willing to risk on a high level.