Mechanical Engineers

When people think of automobile performance, they normally think of horsepower, torque and zero-to-60 acceleration. But all of the power generated by a piston engine is useless if the driver can't control the car. That's why automobile engineers turned their attention to the suspension system almost as soon as they had mastered the four-stroke internal combustion engine. The job of a car suspension is to maximize the friction between the tires and the road surface, to provide steering stability with good handling and to ensure the comfort of the passengers. In this article, we'll explore how car suspensions work, how they've evolved over the years and where the design of suspensions is headed in the future. If a road were perfectly flat, with no irregularities, suspensions wouldn't be necessary. But roads are far from flat. Even freshly paved highways have subtle imperfections that can interact with the wheels­ of a car. It's these imperfections tha...

The process by which a car works is a lot simpler than you may think. When a driver turns a key in the ignition: The car battery powers up sending Power to the starter motor, which Turns the crankshaft, which Gets the pistons moving With the pistons moving the engine fires up and ticks over A fan draws air into the engine via an air filter The air filter removes dirt and grit from the air The cleaned air is drawn into a chamber where fuel (petrol or diesel) is added This fuel-air mix (a vaporised gas) is stored in the chamber The driver presses the accelerator pedal The throttle valve is opened The gas-air mix passes through an intake manifold and is distributed, through intake valves, into the cylinders. The camshaft controls the opening and closing of the valves. The distributor makes the spark plugs spark, which ignites the fuel-air mix. The resulting explosion forces a piston to move down which in turn causes the crankshaft to rotate. What happens in the cyl...