Assignment

A suitable car body must fulfil several tasks. All vehicle parts should be connected tightly with each other weighing as little as possible. The design should supply passive safety support, and the air stream around the body should be as smooth as possible. Besides, the openings may not be too small. E.G., the loading edge should not be too high, decreasing the stability. Also different construction forms (e.g., 2-door models and 4-door models) with possibly a lot of identical parts should be possible.

Function

The car body is either self-supporting (passenger car) or it features a frame with different bodies (truck and real cross-country vehicles). Hybrid forms are possible, in which the body substantially strengthens the stability of the frame. As much as possible, the passenger's cell should be preserved in case of an accident, the doors should still open and the crease front end or rear part should be energy-taking up. The tank should not be positioned in this area.

Moreover, the pressure on the manufacturers to save weight with the car body clearly increases. This is, because the safety and comfort equipment makes the cars ever more heavy. Of course the manufacturing processes must also be optimised. Bigger pressing, automated transport systems and short switching times are requested.

A growing trend toward mixed construction, at steel the specific use of high strength metal sheets. This results in some cases even to a partial loss of crumple zones what is then compensated again e.g. by two- stage air bags. Overall, however, the stability of our bodies increases significantly, despite weight reduction. A measure for this is the torsional stiffness. 03/12

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