Cars are made of about 60 percent steel, 1 percent cast iron and 9 percent aluminum. In total, more than 10,000 individual parts made of very different materials are installed in a car. Pure iron is not used because it is far too soft for vehicle construction. Iron smelting processes remove carbon from the material. It becomes harder and can be further processed into various steels of different strengths. Steel has a wide variety of technical properties that make the material so important for the automotive industry. It can be tailored for very special uses in body construction or the construction of the chassis. In addition, steel is very easy to process and recycle and also has a very good price-performance ratio.
Common parts of a car
The most obvious part of a car is the body. This means the overall structure of the vehicle. Modern bodies are self-supporting. This means that the body panels can absorb and compensate for the forces generated when driving. Earlier cars had a chassis that provided the basic framework for body construction. The self-supporting bodies have made modern cars much lighter. With the help of special joining processes, the individual parts of the body are inseparably connected.
The engine
The engine is the center of the drive. How an internal combustion engine works is basically always the same. Fuel enters the cylinders, where the combustion chamber is located, via an intake system together with a specific amount of air. The mixture is compressed and then exploded. The resulting force drives the pistons down and the process starts all over again with the intake of fuel and air. The necessary springs and bent wire parts come from specialized suppliers.
The force that is generated and moves the pistons causes the connecting rod to rotate. This ultimately causes the car to drive. The process runs like an endless loop over and over again. The speed increases as the number of repetitions of this process increases.
The power from the engine is transmitted via the clutch and transmission. How the power is converted depends on the gear in which the vehicle is being driven. Eventually, the driveshaft transfers all the power to the axle, and the wheels turn. The exhaust gases that are produced during combustion in the engine compartment are routed to the outside via an exhaust pipe.
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The undercarriage
The chassis consists of the components that are in contact with the road, i.e. essentially the tyres, wheel suspension, steering and brakes. The wheel suspension is a connection that flexibly connects the wheel and vehicle frame. The wheel suspension is responsible for transferring steering movements and other forces to the wheels. It is also the suspension and seat of a brake.
The electronics
Today there is no longer a car without electronics. Most of the functions are managed by a control unit. In order for the individual components to function, they need electricity, which they draw from the vehicle battery. The battery is charged by the generator while driving. There is an enormous wiring harness installed in the vehicle, also known as a wiring harness.
The interior
The interior of the vehicle is equipped with many visible parts, such as seats, pedals, mirrors, steering wheel or levers and buttons. In addition, many different electrical components are installed there, which very unobtrusively increase the comfort in the vehicle. For example, modern luxury cars have an on-board computer, rain and light sensors in the windshield, heated seats and electric seat adjustment. The components are all connected to control units that control the devices and ensure trouble-free operation.
Lightweight concepts preferred
The federal government has set high goals in terms of reducing CO2-Emissions concerned. To achieve this ambitious climate goals, it is necessary to start with the transport sector. Because traffic is one of the main causes of CO2-Emissions. To this end, the manufacturers are optimizing the internal combustion engines and making the vehicles lighter. If a vehicle is only around 100 kg lighter, this reduces fuel consumption by a good half a liter per 100 kilometers.
However, the weight reduction must not be at the expense of comfort and safety in the vehicle. The number of electronic components is increasing, which makes holistic measures to reduce weight necessary. Lightweight construction concepts are therefore widely used in automotive engineering. In doing so, manufacturers are partially replacing conventional materials with completely new materials.
High-strength steel is one of the important basics for lower weight and thus lower fuel consumption. Compared to conventional steels, this steel is characterized by the fact that the sheet thickness can be reduced without losing structural strength. Modern steels can even improve crash behavior. Such so-called tailored blanks already account for 50 percent of current vehicles. Tailored blanks are thin sheets or metal blanks that are assembled from different materials in different material thicknesses. This already enables weight savings of up to 20 percent.
Proportion of plastic increases
Another material plays an important role in making vehicles lighter: plastics. They are characterized by an above-average density. Several hundred components are already made of plastic today. Plastics don’t start to rust. However, the UV radiation can still trigger oxidation processes that make the material brittle. The manufacturers try to prevent this with additives.
Fibre-reinforced plastic components offer a high degree of stability at a lower weight. Composite materials are used here made of high-quality plastics such as epoxies or Kevlar, in which glass or carbon fibers are embedded.
04/20/2022