Idea
The common valve spring system is satisfactory for traditional mass-produced engines that do not rev highly and are of a design that requires low maintenance. At the period of initial desmodromic development, valve springs were a major limitation on engine performance because they would break from metal fatigue. Vacuum melt processes developed in the 1950s helped remove impurities in the steel used to make valve springs, although after sustained operation above 8000 RPM often springs would still fail. The desmodromic system was devised to remedy this problem. Furthermore, as maximum RPM increases, higher spring force is required to return the valve, leading to increased cam drag and higher wear on the parts at all speeds, problems addressed by the desmodromic mechanism.
Read more about this topic: Desmodromic Valve
Famous quotes containing the word idea:
“You know what the Englishman’s idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Why inspire in us a horror of our being?... To look upon the universe as a prison cell and all men as criminals about to be executed is the idea of a fanatic.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“See, in the Navy, during the war, I got used to the idea that something might happen to me, I might not make it. Well, I also got used to the idea that my wife and children were safe at home, they’d be all right no matter what. But what I didn’t reckon with was that in this, this kind of a monstrous war, something might happen to them, and not to me. Well it did, and I can’t, I can’t cope with it.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)