It's a known fact: a MotoGP prototype can reach more than 350 km/h in the right conditions. But what about the speed at which the components move? Some of them move at incredibly higher speeds.
Depending on the circuit and conditions, a MotoGP has an average lap speed of between 160 and 185 km/h. But many speeds are not necessarily measured or visible to the naked eye, and yet they are all equally important in the performance of these unique machines.
The engine, for example, has many moving parts that move at different times and in different ways. The motor can reach a rotation speed of 18.000 rpm, when the driver requires maximum power. At such speeds, each valve opens and closes 150 times per second, which is hard to imagine. The demand that this movement has on the parts means that air-return valves are necessary (or a desmodromic system at Ducati), as conventional valve springs cannot withstand this intensity.
The injectors, which supply fuel to the engine, follow the same rhythm as the valves, making around 9.000 injections per minute when the engine is at maximum capacity.
The pistons move at an average speed of around 29 meters per second, or a speed of just over 100 km/h. That doesn't sound like much, but we're talking about an average speed of a part traveling about 48mm, in which it goes from a completely stationary state, to its maximum speed, and then back to stationary state.
This process is repeated 18.000 times per minute over a distance less than the width of a smartphone. Being constantly subjected to such accelerations and decelerations puts a lot of strain on the pistons.
But it's not just the engine: the motorcycle's wheels can exceed 50 revolutions per second when the motorcycle reaches a speed of 300 km/h. To put this into perspective, a washing machine running at 1500 rpm only makes 25 revolutions per second.
The carbon discs spin at the same speed as the wheel, but are subject to other constraints. During the strongest braking phases, they go from a temperature of 250°C to nearly 800°C in less than 5 seconds. Once the rider releases the brake lever, the disc begins to cool, before the next braking.
Speaking of braking, drivers spend between 20% and 30% of their time on the track braking, which on some circuits can represent more than 30 seconds per lap.
Discs aren't the only component that must operate at a specific temperature: the engine can also experience problems if temperatures are excessive. To control engine temperature, coolant is used. This fluid is driven by a pump, triggered by the engine itself, circulating the fluid throughout the system.
In doing so, a constant temperature is achieved. At high revs, the coolant flow rate can exceed 100 liters per minute, which is equivalent to emptying a one and a half liter bottle every second.
Exhaust gases also reach an impressive temperature, close to 700°C, but the speed at which they are released, at around 350 km/h, is not as impressive as the speed at which sound waves travel at inside this component. They can reach 500 m/s, the equivalent of 1800 km/h.
During a lap of the Circuit of the Americas, drivers can make around 30 gear changes, some of them spaced so closely together that you hardly notice it. But thanks to the Seamless gearbox, a MotoGP can make this change in just a hundredth of a second. In total, there are around 600 gear changes made during a race, which would equate to almost 15 gear changes per minute. This is a lot, if we compare it to what we do when we drive on the road, even in an urban environment.
Although the ECU does not actually move, it is subject to the speed of data transfer. During a GP, the team's engineers can download more than 30 GB of data collected by this electronic box. Some of the sensors positioned on motorcycles can collect up to 1000 measurements per second and the ECU is able to adjust the operation of electronic systems in an instant.
source: BoxRepsol.com
