Stochastic analysis of motorcycle dynamics

Off-road and racing motorcycles require a particular setup of the suspensions to improve the comfort and the safety of the rider, maintaining a continuous contact between the road and the motorcycle (by means of the tires). Further, because of the ground roughness, in the case of offroad motorcycle, suspensions usually experience extreme and erratic excursions (suspension stroke) in performing their function. In this regard, the adoption of nonlinear devices can, perhaps, limit both the acceleration experienced by the sprung mass and the excursions of the suspensions. This leads to the consideration of asymmetric nonlinearly-behaving suspensions. This option, however, induces the difficulty…