Deeper understanding of automotive terms and disciplines – Moladin

The term Automotive may already be familiar enough to Moladiners’ ears, particularly those who love motor vehicles, both cars and motorcycles. But what exactly is a car?

Automotive or automotive in English, derives from the Greek autos (car) and from the Latin motivus (movement). The great Indonesian dictionary defines the automotive as something that rotates by itself (like motorcycles and so on).

This term, according to Wikipedia, was first coined by Elmer Sperry in the 19th century and was supposed to refer to self-propelled vehicles. If we look at history, in the past vehicles were driven by animals, such as horse-drawn carriages.

It cannot actually move on its own, but the vehicle is powered by a machine in place of the animals. The world’s first vehicle has actually existed since the 17th century thanks to the invention of the steam engine.

However, scientists only delved into this branch of science in the early 19th century with the invention of the internal combustion engine and electric motor.

Experiment after experiment was conducted until the mid 19th century the internal combustion engine evolved to use gasoline (gasoline) as a fuel.

Carl Benz in 1887 presented the world’s first automobile prototype. But what marked the birth of the development of the automotive industry was the Ford Motor Company’s Ford Model T in 1908. This was the first modern car to roll off the assembly line for mass production.

Automotive industry and its derivatives

The automotive industry plays a significant role and contribution not only in the world economy, but also in human civilization. The process of creating and developing automotive product technology covers many disciplines.

The automotive industry creates a large number of jobs. Put simply, the manufacturing process for automotive products is pre-production, production and post-production.

The pre-production process includes the planning, design or design of the model, the design of the performance system of each component contained therein to the electronic system contained therein. Also included in this initial process is the planning of production costs, the investment for determining the sales price of the product. That is why auto companies have many divisions with their respective roles.

Not to mention automotive products that require a lot of support components. For example, fluids such as engine lubricant, transmission lubricant, radiator coolant, brake fluid, and so on.

Many disciplines are involved in the automotive industry. Again, if we just want to understand automotive products specifically, there are many branches of knowledge that can be studied. In general, automotive engineering is one of the fields of science that is probably quite important in the emergence of automotive products.

Automotive engineering branch

Automotive engineering studies generally cover 3 fields, namely manufacturing, development, manufacturing and maintenance. The scope of automotive engineering is quite broad, from the design, development and manufacturing of products to the testing of vehicles or components from the concept stage to the final product.

Automotive engineering covers everything from mechanics, to electricity, from software to safety factors. Each element is applied to the design, manufacture and operation of the vehicle. All involve intensive and in-depth research areas.

Well, Moladiners, it turns out that studying the automotive world cannot be said to be easy, right! That’s why automotive engineering has many branches of disciplines, including:

1. Safety engineering

This field studies the application of technology related to the safety of drivers and passengers of vehicles. Engineers in this field study a variety of accident scenarios and their impact on passenger safety.

Then they develop a number of components that can reduce the impact of accidents or even minimize the risk of accidents. Some of the newer vehicles, for example, have built-in safety features that can help automatically shift the steering wheel so the vehicle doesn’t roll off the track. Or a function that can automatically stop the vehicle in an emergency if the driver is late to brake.

Standard safety features that are now owned by almost all vehicles, for example, seat belts, airbags (airbags) to ABS braking (anti-lock braking system) and so on.

3. Fuel saving

Fuel consumption is also an important consideration for consumers when choosing a vehicle. As a means of daily transportation, the car should be a vehicle that is not only capable of providing adequate performance, but also has good fuel efficiency.

Today’s automotive products must be fuel efficient. In addition to supporting the economic value of vehicle ownership, efficient fuel consumption is also more energy efficient.

Of course, exhaust emissions are one of the things to consider. The engine combustion results contain substances such as hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Engineers should be able to develop technologies that produce engines with high levels of fuel efficiency and are more environmentally friendly without sacrificing performance.

Even today, the development of vehicle technology has entered the era of electric vehicles. Electric cars no longer drink fuel and emit exhaust gases.

3. NVH engineering

Noise (noise), vibration (vibration) and hardness (noise) in three aspects that cannot be avoided in a motor vehicle. All three are effects produced by the combustion process in the engine, vehicle movement mechanisms and others.

NVH Engineering studies and develops technology to minimize NVH to provide a comfortable driving experience. Not only disturbing driving comfort, low NVH levels can even interfere with vehicle system performance to affect the life of vehicle components.

4. Vehicle electronics

Every modern vehicle must be equipped with an electronic system. The electronic system, in fact, is not only used to activate driving support devices such as audio control units, lights and air conditioning, but also controls the performance of the engine, suspension and steering.

Modern cars use ECU (Electronic Control Unit) whose function can adjust the engine power, fuel efficiency, damping level of the suspension to the movement and the weight of the steering.

Indeed, at this time the electronic technology of vehicles has begun to develop the application of a self-control system. Using different sensors and cameras positioned around the car, the resulting input is then processed to automatically operate the steering, gas and brakes. This system has been applied to numerous vehicles, for example some Tesla electric cars with the Autopilot function.

5. Performance

Vehicle performance is generally measured by the power of the engine. Each component of the machine has a complex calculation to produce optimal performance. That’s why if you’re interested in automotive mechanical engineering, it seems like you should also be familiar with mathematical models and formulas.

The size of the power produced by the engine uses different units, such as horsepower, PS and others. Meanwhile, the torque or torsional moment uses units of Kg.m or Nm and others. Machine generated output translates into wheels in performance measurable both in acceleration and in maximum speed.

6. Durability

Good automotive products have a good shelf life. The selection of materials is one of the important elements that engineers consider in manufacturing products that have a good durability.

The materials used not only affect the durability of automotive products and the components they contain, but also affect performance, driving stability, passenger safety and comfort.

For example, the use of carbon fiber material in sports or high-performance vehicles. This material is known to have a light weight but has a sturdy material strength. However, this material has an expensive manufacturing cost so that it also has an impact on the high selling price. That is why this material is rarely used in economical urban vehicles.

In addition to these six aspects, there are many other disciplines in automotive engineering. For example aerodynamic engineering which studies the external shape of aerodynamic vehicles. The goal is to reduce the drag coefficient which can reduce wind resistance so as to improve performance, fuel efficiency and reduce noise when driving at high speed.

That was the discussion of the notion of the automobile. Keep watching Moladin.com to update the latest automotive news.