Plures Intelligens Modicum Machinatorem
808 Gilman Street Berkeley, CA 94710 | 510-549-3300 | admin@bearinc.com
Dr. Glen Stevick, P.E. ext. 101 | Dr. Dave Rondinone, P.E. ext. 102 | Derek King, P.E. ext. 103 | Mingxi Zheng, P.E. ext. 106
Motorcycles.
Determining the underlying cause of an auto or motorcycle accident is critical to legal and insurance settlements. Accidents vary widely from equipment problems, like faulty tires and brakes, to component failures resulting in fire and death.These defects and manufacturing errors require testing and reverse engineering to learn what design errors were involved. Bear's engineers specialize in investigating the circumstances and evidence to determine underlying causes.
Figure 1: Motorcycle used for testing components for failure analysis.
One such tragic accident involved an injury and fire resulting from a poorly designed component. BEAR engineers reviewed the traffic and police reports, depositions, and evidence to determine the negligence and cause. By testing the metal fuel tank and motor of the motorcycle, it was discovered that the metal fuel tank was defective and very dangerous. It was easily punctured by any metal object and would leak gasoline and subsequently, the metal tank would ignite causing an explosion. BEAR engineers conducted impact tests of the critical components and the gas tank to measure how much force they could bear until failure. The motorcycle tank should have been made with stronger material available on the market, such as a polymer. This would have made it impossible to ignite a spark in the tank, eliminating the possibility of a dangerous explosion.
Figure 3: Impact testing of exemplar components of the motorcycle.
Figure 2: Evidence showing the results of the failure of the motorcycle gas tank.
