The Amazing in Automobile Technology : How It Was Done

Overview:

Automobile technology has made an amazing advance over the past 10 years and this 2nd article in the series will highlight what has happened. It will highlight how this could be done. An extensive subject such as this, had to be broken down into various portions.

In the 1990’s one had the belief that there could not be any more advances in the technology in automobiles, development had reached its zenith. The ever increasing pressure by legislators, clean air legislations and the looming shortage of oil reserves, had pushed engineers to develop more efficient motor cars and their engines.

The astounding claims by manufacturers, as mentioned in a preceeding article, sounded almost too good to be true. They claimed huge savings in fuel consumption for their new models.

The more general developments:

which were researched many years ago but never really used, have been dusted off again and applied with good results.

Reduction inweight: The safety lobby pressed for cars to be safer during a crash, but this had meant additonal reinforcement of the automobile bodies, increasing their weight.

By using high strength steel in the structure of a modern automobile the increase in weight can be managed. Many parts on modern cars are made out of plastic because it is lightweight and easy to form and even composites (high strength woven fibres in a resin matrix) are being used on more upmarket motor cars. In racing cars, where high strength coupled to low weight is imperative, composites are common but in normal production cars their high costs disallow their use.

Although quite costly, aluminum is being used more and more in the more upmarket motor cars these days. Less weight to be accelerated and braked down in city traffic has a great effect on the consumption of gas, less weight means less petrol being used.

-    Streamlining:

These days motor cars are designed to be as streamlined as possible within the constraints of practicality as that has a substantial effect on the fuel consumption of motor cars at higher speeds. Many years ago makes like Citroen as well as Audi had produced automobiles with low drag co-efficient and lately every manufacturer does it also.

The effect of aerodynamic drag only comes into play at higher speeds such as being reached on the open road, but is also one of the factors that are actively pursued by the manufacturers.

-    The Reduction of Friction Losses

Internal friction has to be reduced whereever possible if the aim is to make an engine more efficient.

To reduce drag on engines, some of the ancillary equipment is nowadays powered by electric motors and to charge the battery the alternator charges only when the car is coasting.

Narrower low friction tires are often used where impressive road holding is of secondary importance.

These show some of the ways in which present day cars have been improved. These advances however pale into lesser significance when compared to the advances that have been made with the design of engines and transmissions. This is the subject of supplementary articles in the series.

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Author: Dieter Hoffmann  a car, nut if ever there was one. My website is not about cars but about another of my interests i.e. woodworking. The name of the website is http://www.toolsforcarpentry.com   where you can find information about woodworking tools plus plans for making just about any woodworking project as well as boats .

 

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