Paioli New Laboratories

In 1998, Paioli Meccanica has come to set at work a department for functional tests of absolute technical and scientific value. This department has been created after having carefully examined the best research and test instrument systems the world market was offering.Now the Bolognese House can certify to its customers the functional and technical content of its products in an absolutely objective and scientific way, while pointing out those qualities which made it possible for Paioli to establish itself in the international field.

In 1999 Paioli Meccanica attained UNI EN ISO 9001 quality certification.

From the scientific organisation point of view, an articulated system has been created, where Paioli Meccanica has a central role but its Customers’ factories play an active part too, thanks to an exchange of information which is thought to be continuous and deep. In this way, there is a growth of both actors in the extremely complex and difficult sector of motorcycle suspensions.

Technical and scientific elements a modern structure for designing testing and validation is based on, can be outlined as follows: Instruments for research and test, Scientific interchange with Universities, Technical-information relationship with Industries-Customers

INSTRUMENTS FOR RESEARCH AND TEST

The new department has been equipped with the most modern testing machines manufactured according to Paioli engineers’ specific requests. For a House that wants to deal with the research in motorcycle front-wheel suspension field in a responsible and organised way, this is now the only choice to take the lead with respect to competitors.

Thanks to an electromechanical dynamometer, we are now able to guarantee quality and constancy in the springs used for our forks. This dynamometer is produced by MTS (U.S. company which is leader in this sector) and measures both elastic response and hysteresis cycle.

To study fork structure under stress limit conditions and to bring components up to destruction with absolute safety and complete control on all the parameters into play, an exclusive double roller test bench has been produced, co-operating with Engines Engineering, one of the most famous designing agencies in this field.
Data recorded on road by our test drivers, by the data acquisition system from the German company 2D, are used to create a map of the stresses. These stresses can then be entered the software that controls bench operation, and are perfectly fit for the type of motorcycle and use envisaged by the Manufacturer.
At this point, the motorcycle – mounted on the double roller test bench and suitably fastened – is "tortured" according to parameters (wheel spin velocity, obstacle shape and height, duration of the test) chosen by technicians.
A special and refined software (called Lab View) checks both machine operation and displacements and deformations in the vital points of the fork and motorcycle.
In this way, Paioli Meccanica will be able to certify the life and efficiency of its products, and to fit the fork to Customer’s needs, while always optimising cost/efficiency ratio.

The high-speed hydraulic machine for shock-absorber test is the queen of the entire laboratory because, considering the technological level and amazing performances, is the best actually available worldwide.

Produced by MTS, this machine is powered by an over-30-kW hydraulic cabinet, matched with a system of hydraulic accumulators which allow the suspension stress piston to reach speeds over 5 m/s. As we can combine countless stress frequencies and wave-forms, we can practically reproduce all possible operating conditions, thus obtaining a functional and fatigue enquire that is extremely complete and realistic.

The friction test at very low speed allows instead measuring the energy the sliding system absorbs. This energy quantity is extremely contained but it is fundamental to reduce friction between inner tubes, legs, DU and dust seal to next to nothing in order to give the maximum sensitivity to the suspension on small upward projecting bumps, at low speed.

Scientific interchange with Universities

Italian University - and in particular the University of Bologna which is the most ancient in the world – is co-operating with Paioli Meccanica and gives its own scientific knowledge to search for and create engineering software’s and operating software’s for the machines in Paioli Laboratory. Moreover, a study is being done on a mathematical model of suspension and motorcycle, which is to be validated by campaigns of tests on road and in lab. Actions are also envisaged to define tensions coming from road use and to transfer them on a model of the suspension, to be studied by means of finished-element technique, validated by lab tests on double roller test bench.

In a similar way, there is a very close co-operation with Universities in the field of both routine and development metallographic enquires and metallurgical researches.

Technical-information relationship with Industries-Customers

As our customers have an experience background without equal, Paioli Meccanica intends to intensify the information exchange which already exists with its own industrial customers and is quite satisfactory. In this way, we mean to reach a synergy in research and test field, which can make it possible for the above-mentioned complex programs of structural and dynamic analysis to come to their complete technical maturity. In addition, customers can have at their disposal the great quantity of theoretical and experimental information that Paioli is expecting to gather in a short while at its laboratories.