Statement Ducati

Antonio Mazzanti, Manager development two-valve engine with Ducati.
Gennaro Cugnetto, Manager research and development department with Ducati, Bologna, Italy.

"During our engine development activity, for many years it has been used the angle encoder AVL 364X version. According to the engine dimensions, the marker disk had an outer diameter D_a = 130 mm with a thickness of 0.5 mm. Along the years, in order to overtake reliability problems, the solution with a thickness of 0.8 mm has been chosen; this solution allowed us to increase the angle encoder lifetime. Although this improvement seems to be good enough for some engine's families, in the application done on the Desmosedici engine replica (the production engine derived from the racing type) reliability problems appeared at specific engine speed range. Above 13.000 rpm, after few working hours, the high vibrating level in the marker disk application area, made it destroy itself. The solution with a smaller outer diameter (around 90 mm) didn't significantly improve the situation.

Then AVL introduced their new angle encoder development AVL 365X. The choice of the angle encoder AVL 365X with a marker disk of 85 mm (outer diameter) and 0.8 mm (thickness) has been a definitive solution. The smaller protrusion of the CDM trace in comparison to the mounting flange and the choice of only one marker trace with integrated Trigger mark, have determined a marker disc higher resistance to dynamic bending stress caused by very severe application, that consequently gives us the chance to approach speed ranges which were impossible to reach in the past."

Your questions, comments, wishes?