• Question: how is vehicles engineered

    Asked by ixabdulxi to Andrew, Ben, Beth, Heather, Louisa on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louisa Chard

      Louisa Chard answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I have no idea about engineering so I can’t answer this one I’m afraid.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It depends on what the vehicle is to be used for. There are also many many things that need to be engineered. Let’s just consider one example: their suspension.
      Cars are engineered to run on tar-mac roads, so their suspension systems will be designed to cope with small lumps and bumps that you would get on a road – stones, small cracks… If you ever hit a pot-hole, your cars’ suspension can’t cope with that so you feel the *bang* as you go over.
      Off-road vehicles however need to be able to cope with much bumpier conditions, so their suspension will have a lot of movement to not feel the huge lumps and bumps. Take them onto the hard road surface, and you will find that, although the vehicle will drive ok, the suspension system is very soft, meanign that the vehicle will lean over a great deal when going around corners.
      Vehicles need to be designed for purpose, and this means that some compromises need to be made.

    • Photo: Beth Dyson

      Beth Dyson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      With lots and lots of money! Most of the cost of a new car goes to pay off the design and testing costs. I’m not too sure about how cars are actually made, other than they are tested for aerodynamics, crash safety, flexibility and a host of other things before they can be produced on a large scale!!

      Although if you watch car adverts it seems to be quite impressive!

Comments

  • Photo: Hywel

    Hywel commented on :

    It depends really what vehicle you are engineering!
    A lot of design work is done first on the chassis (the bit inside) to ensure that it is a good vehicle – this normally includes impact testing, suspension, roll resistance and quite a few others. At the same time though the engineers have to work very closely with the designers to create the external bodywork – the part that you see. This not only has to look good (to get you to buy it!) but also has to work well aerodynamically and work well with users (the study is called ergonomics – understanding how people interact with the vehicle). This means that several of the same (or slightly modified) chassis can be used for different cars with different bodywork – the fiesta and mazda for example both use the same technology. Hope that helps a little 🙂