vehicle

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Concept car

Vehicle engineering – encompasses the fields of automotive engineering, aerospace engineering, and marine engineering.

Concept car – a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are created to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs. Concept cars never go into production directly, and have to undergo many changes for practicality, safety, regulatory compliance, and cost.

General Motors designer Harley Earl is generally credited with inventing the concept car for Motorama shows of the 1950s.

Vehicle dynamics refers to the dynamics of vehicles, usually ground vehicles, based on classical mechanics, applied primarily to automobiles.

  • bicycle and motorcycle dynamics – single-track vehicles, two-wheeled
  • aerodynamics – aircraft, spacecraft technologies
  • hydrodynamics – watercraft

Components, attributes or aspects of vehicle dynamics

  • steering, suspension, axle track, camber, caster, roll center, wheelbase,
  • drag coefficient, center of pressure, downforce, ground effect
  • noise, vibration, and harshness
  • vehicular metrics – a broad range of metrics that denote the relative capabilities of various vehicles. Most of them apply to all vehicles while others are type-specific.

Internal Combustion Engines and Fuel Technologies
Electric Vehicles
Intelligent Transportation Systems
Wind Tunnels
What’s the problem?

  • Ask – What can be done to improve internal combustion engines? Who would be willing to pay for research in this area?
  • Imagine – What are some other existing technologies that can be adopted or adapted? Are there opportunities to innovate and come up with new ways to do the same work?
  • Improve – What is currently being done to improve vehicles besides internal combustion engines?

Engineering ideas

  • internal combustion, fuel, sustainability, efficiency, aerodynamics

Do it
Now it is your turn. Here are some challenges for you to work on…

  • design a concept car. What features would you include and what improvements would your car have over existing production cars?

Learn more…

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