There is no denying that cars are becoming lighter, as are the products of the five major car systems. The most heavy car of the same rank a few decades ago has now become the least present, while the least regarded car has now become almost a heavy proxy. Will the constant weight loss of cars lead to a reduction in body strength? Is there an impact on security? In fact, body strength and safety were not affected。
This means that there is no causal link between the weight and the strength of the vehicle and its safety, or that it is unsafe and less intense if it is light. This, of course, is a comparison of vehicles of the same grade, and instead, if a class a vehicle were used to compare class b and c, it would be a total exercise. The a-class car could not have hit the b-class car without having anything to do with light weight and with money. This comparison is meaningless. The declining weight of the same grade or pattern has no impact on safety。
So the weight of the car is not so much about strength and safety as it is about good or bad manipulation, which is a chassis engineer, an aerodynamic engineer. After all, the f1 race is the fastest and the least heavy. The real factors affecting vehicle safety are material, structure, size. For example, why are passengers in the same car more seriously injured? Owing to the small size of the vehicle and the small space, the body was squeezed by collisions and contractions。
What's the purpose and meaning of light weight
Light quantification is a global trend in the automotive industry, although other industries are also seeking light quantification. For cars, weight reduction would give the car a better fuel economy, followed by greater control, so the first step for civilian vehicles to get on the track would be weight reduction, and weight reduction would be performance enhancement. The next weight reduction would better contain noise。
With increasing material science and body-structure manufacturing techniques, cars today can be reduced entirely on the basis of safety, so why not? Fuel economy is an important driver of weight reduction in cars. One thing to understand, however, is that the weight reduction must be based on ensuring security, not on compromises made to satisfy fuel economy. Vehicle safety is the absolute core of vehicle design。
How the car reduced its weight with guaranteed strength
The weight reduction of cars revolves around two aspects, material upgrading and more rational structural design. In fact, the weight reduction of cars is gradual and can be understood as intergenerational. In other words, each shift reduces the weight of the car by a few dozen kilograms, and the same car can be seen to have lost hundreds of kilograms after several shifts. This long process has in fact been accompanied by the upgrading of manufacturing and material technologies. It is also the constant upgrading of structures and materials technology that ensures that vehicles remain robust and secure during the weight reduction process。
As shown in the figure above, the new century weight of the buick in the late 1990s was 2. 1 tons, while the figure below shows only 1. 6 tons. And how did this car achieve the weight reduction? Please don't make the problem so complicated that the v6 and v8 natural inhaling engines become today 2. 0t, 1. 5t pressurized engines. How much weight can be lost when the body parts change from the steel of the past to the current application of a large number of aluminium alloys? In fact, these two parts alone can already steal a lot of weight。
It is no longer a secret that, in addition to a large number of aluminium alloy components, large quantities of engineering plastic parts will be used in today's cars. For example, plastics are used in gas tank covers, plastics are used in oil casings, etc., and engineering plastics are used in even some gears, transfer axes, etc. And what does that mean? It is also for the wise, but it can be understood that, in the past, metal was used to ensure strength and safety, so that even lighter plastics could not be used。
And as the materials continue to upgrade, the strength of engineering plastics is no longer metal. Please don't ask why plastics are stronger than metals. Because of science, you're worried that the designers will think that the plant's strength will be assured by using engineering plastics. As in the case of aluminum alloy-resistant steel beams, the steel beams of this type were only seen in the a8, 7st and s levels a decade ago, and even a mirebel is now using aluminium alloy beams。
Therefore, light quantification must gradually spread downwards, starting with high-end vehicles, as the cost of new materials is highest and as production increases, the costs of sinking will continue to decrease and eventually become more widespread for lower-grade vehicles. In addition, holes can be pierced in any position that is not visible to the body, such as under the chassis, under the hood of the engine and in positions such as swing arms. That is to use software to remove the cumbersome parts that do not affect intensity at the beginning of the design。
In sum, as technologies such as materials, structural design and so forth continue to rise, it is not difficult today to reduce the weight of cars based on ensuring strength. As the rover champions and champions today have abandoned the beam and reduced their weight, their strength has not increased, as shown in the figure below. The victory, which was caught before and after, did not deform pillars a and c, while the rover of the 1990s, though heavier, was caught before and after, probably has been deformed。
So material upgrades can reduce usage, for example, by replacing steel plates of 780ma with steel plates of up to 980 mpas, and reduce thickness by about 0. 4 mm in the same area. And this is just a reduction in the weight of a component, and the body is made up of thousands of parts, and if all parts are reduced, does the weight of the vehicle fall? The answer is yes, so the reduction in weight of the vehicle is actually a few kilograms down here, and a few grams down there combined。
