Creating a fully electric motorbike that’s suitable for rugged terrain while providing speed, comfort and control

About the customer

The Elisava Racing Team was born in 2018 at Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering as a project for final year students. The challenge was to design and develop an electric motorcycle to compete in the Barcelona Smart Moto Challenge, an international competition held annually in Catalonia. With a focus on sustainable mobility, university teams from around the world compete in an off-road race using self-engineered electric motorcycles. The students achieved outstanding race results by using Siemens’ Simcenter™ Inspire™ software solutions to optimize several structural parts of their bike. In 2019, the team won five awards with the electric
motorcycle “ERAY” and continued its success in 2020 with the motorcycle “Dayna.”

“We are convinced that the Siemens academic program was key for the success of our e mobility project,” says Marta Janeras, head of the simulation and development area, Elisava. “The collaboration with Siemens empowers the project development team with a comprehensive portfolio of engineering solutions, which maximizes product quality.”

Simulation helps teams generate shapes, predict material behaviors, and optimize products and manufacturing processes.

Their challenge

Although the team had already optimized important structural parts with ERAY and “Dayna, it wanted to take its latest design, “Dayna EVO,” a step further. In the new design, the team wanted to develop a 100 percent electric off-road motorcycle, an internet of things (IoT) connection, and a medical service capable of reaching where it’s needed. With Dayna EVO, the team sought to improve the bike’s safety, comfort and structural behavior. Overall, they wanted a lighter, simpler bike. To do so, the teams needed simulation tools to generate shapes, predict material behavior and optimize manufacturing processes for the fully electrified motorbike.

The Dayna Evo is the first 100% electric off-road motorcycle for rescue service and assistance in mountain sports events.

Our solution

By using Simcenter Inspire for optimizing topology, the team was able to perfect the design of several structural parts while achieving maximum weight reduction. The team began the process by analyzing the original chassis’ performance.

For the aluminum subframe, the team used Simcenter Inspire to minimize the structural assembly weight. They used Simcenter Inspire 3D Print software to optimize the manufacturing process by identifying the required support structures and by minimizing the residual stresses of the printing process itself.

To design the bike’s swingarm, the team studied three main load cases and focused on the vertical load (the most dominant load in a motorcycle swingarm). Performing various iterations with Simcenter Inspire, the team generated the geometry with an optimal shape to minimize the bike’s mass while still supporting the loads and keeping overall stress low. For the carbon fiber handlebars, the students had to come up with the dimension
of the parts to ensure driver safety. Using Simcenter, which is part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services, the team optimized the composite material by modifying the number of layers to achieve the desired performance. Finally, the team used Simcenter to simulate the new parts and complex assemblies and evaluate their performance in different racing scenarios.

As a result of the successful collaboration between Siemens and the ELISAVA Racing Team, the Dayna EVO, a reference vehicle for technology, innovation and creativity is a reality.

Results

Using Siemens solutions, the student team improved the motorcycle’s parts and created a lighter, more efficient design. The team also optimized complex assemblies while delivering maximum performance, comfort and safety. Optimizing the Dayna EVO frame to achieve an optimal package for an electric powertrain also shows that
electrification can save costs. In all, the team created a fully electric motorbike that’s suitable for rugged terrain while giving drivers the speed, comfort and control they demand in great bikes. The Dayna EVO is a great step forward for the Elisava team and will help them improve future designs as well.