Car Parts and Accessories

Functions of the Car body

At its simplest, a car is a beam supported at each end by the wheels. So it has to be strong enough not to sag in the middle a property called beam stiffness.

A car must also have tensional stiffness: the ability to resist the stresses imposed by any irregular road surface. “Structural strength is also necessary to cope with particular loads, such as the weight of the engine, thrust of the springs and minor impacts. To have a strong structure without too much weight means using the material as efficiently as possible. But strength is not everything: in addition to providing space for the occupants and their luggage, the bodywork must also protect them in an accident.

Too rigid a body will absorb little of the impact energy in a collision, so more will be transmitted to the occupants. On the other hand, a body that is too weak might collapse on to them. For occupants wearing seat belts, the ideal container is an impenetrable, rigid box, with weaker ends, that will absorb impact energy by progressive crumpling and stop the vehicle less suddenly.

These aspects of a body have to be achieved while making the body as light as possible. Tests have found there is a significant saving in fuel consumed by reducing the weight of a car. Weight can be reduced by finite element analysis on a computer of the proposed body shape, by the use of robots on the assembly line for consistently high quality welds and by the use of lightweight materials such as plastic, aluminium and high-strength low- alloy (HSLA) steels. These measures save fuel and raw material costs.

Auto Aerodynamics

A CAR‘S movement is opposed by the air it is travelling through, as well as by the rolling resistance of the tyres. This air drag, as it is called, increases proportionally to the square of the speed. For example, if speed is doubled, drag is quadrupled; if speed is trebled, drag is increased ninefold.

Preventing Auto Corrosion

BODY CORROSION is not a serious problem in South Africa’s high-lying areas, but is very prevalent at the coast—especially in Durban and Walvis Bay. Summer is the ideal time for electrochemical corrosion caused by moisture at the join of two dissimilar metals.

Where traps are unavoidable in car design, such as inside doors, protection is given by plating metal with a corrosion- resisting metal, such as zinc, or a plastic coating. All South African manufactured cars undergo vigorous antirust treatment which can rarely be improved upon by subsequent procedures. Car owners can help reduce rusting by washing away mud poultices as they form, keeping the car in a dry, airy garage and removing metal particles—formed during drilling or filing—from the body. Water leaks into the car’s interior should be avoided.

Variations in Auto Design

BASIC car body shape is the sedan with two or four doors and a luggage compartment at the rear. The station wagon with a roof extended over the boot space and large rear door has been complemented in recent years by a three or four-door layout fitted to a conventional sedan car body. The third or fifth door forming the rear hatch –hence the term hatchback— without a roof extension that would make the vehicle into a station wagon.

Convertibles have been largely replaced by two-door coupes because of increased constraints on vehicle builders to comply with modern safety requirements.

The increased versatility offered by modified commercial vehicles fitted with windows and seven or eight seats has lead to the development of a new type of ‘family wagon’ vehicle with seating for five adults and three children and extra space for luggage and shopping.

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