Abstract
This chapter commences with a review of chassis structures for the different classes of road vehicles including mass-produced passenger cars, high performance vehicles, small sports cars and commercial vehicles. It proceeds to consider the different materials used in vehicle structures with a focus on reducing vehicle weight and therefore carbon emissions through the use of high strength steel, aluminium and composite materials. The following section outlines different methods of analysis of vehicle structures including both traditional theoretical methods and modern computational techniques. Crash safety of vehicles under impact loading is then considered and a particular case study of the crashworthiness of a small space frame sports car is presented in detail. The final section of the chapter deals with the durability assessment of vehicle structures and again includes a detailed case study of the fatigue assessment and optimisation of a suspension component.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Barton, D.C., Fieldhouse, J.D. (2024). Vehicle Structures and Materials. In: Automotive Chassis Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57526-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57526-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-57525-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-57526-6
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)