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Body-on-frame
Body-on-frame, also known as ladder frame construction, is a common motor vehicle construction method, whereby a separate body or coach is mounted on a strong and relatively rigid vehicle frame or chassis that carries the powertrain (the engine and drivetrain) and to which the wheels and their suspension, brakes, and steering are mounted. While this was the original method of building automobiles, body-on-frame construction is now used mainly for heavy trucks, pickups, and predominantly large SUVs. In the late 19th century the frames, like those of the carriages they replaced, might be made of wood (commonly ash), reinforced by steel flitch plates – but in the early 20th century steel ladder frames or chassis rapidly became standard. Mass production of all-metal bodies began with the Budd Company and the Dodge Brothers. Mass production of all-metal bodies became general in the 1920s but Europe, with exceptions, followed almost a decade later. Europe's custom-made or "coac ...
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Vehicle Frame
A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had a structural frame separate from its body. This construction design is known as ''body-on-frame''. By the 1960s, unibody construction in passenger cars had become common, and the trend to unibody for passenger cars continued over the ensuing decades. Nearly all trucks, buses, and most pickups continue to use a separate frame as their chassis. Functions The main functions of a frame in a motor vehicle are: # To support the vehicle's mechanical components and body # To deal with static and dynamic loads, without undue deflection or distortion. :These include: ::*Weight of the body, passengers, and cargo loads. ::*Vertical and torsional twisting transmitted by going over uneven surfaces. ::*Transverse lateral forces caused by road conditi ...
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Vehicle Frame
A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had a structural frame separate from its body. This construction design is known as ''body-on-frame''. By the 1960s, unibody construction in passenger cars had become common, and the trend to unibody for passenger cars continued over the ensuing decades. Nearly all trucks, buses, and most pickups continue to use a separate frame as their chassis. Functions The main functions of a frame in a motor vehicle are: # To support the vehicle's mechanical components and body # To deal with static and dynamic loads, without undue deflection or distortion. :These include: ::*Weight of the body, passengers, and cargo loads. ::*Vertical and torsional twisting transmitted by going over uneven surfaces. ::*Transverse lateral forces caused by road conditi ...
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Unibody
A vehicle frame, also historically known as its '' chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had a structural frame separate from its body. This construction design is known as '' body-on-frame''. By the 1960s, unibody construction in passenger cars had become common, and the trend to unibody for passenger cars continued over the ensuing decades. Nearly all trucks, buses, and most pickups continue to use a separate frame as their chassis. Functions The main functions of a frame in a motor vehicle are: # To support the vehicle's mechanical components and body # To deal with static and dynamic loads, without undue deflection or distortion. :These include: ::*Weight of the body, passengers, and cargo loads. ::*Vertical and torsional twisting transmitted by going over uneven surfaces. ::*Transverse lateral forces caused by road cond ...
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Chassis
A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart of a motor vehicle, on which the body is mounted; if the running gear such as wheels and transmission, and sometimes even the driver's seat, are included, then the assembly is described as a rolling chassis. Examples of use Vehicles In the case of vehicles, the term ''rolling chassis'' means the frame plus the "running gear" like engine, transmission, drive shaft, differential and suspension. An underbody (sometimes referred to as "coachwork"), which is usually not necessary for integrity of the structure, is built on the chassis to complete the vehicle. For commercial vehicles, a rolling chassis consists of an assembly of all the essential parts of a truck without the body to be ready for operation on the road. A car chassis wi ...
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Monocoque
Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, a true monocoque carries both tensile and compressive forces within the skin and can be recognised by the absence of a load-carrying internal frame. Few metal aircraft other than those with milled skins can strictly be regarded as pure monocoques, as they use a metal shell or sheeting reinforced with frames riveted to the skin, but most wooden aircraft are described as monocoques, even though they also incorporate frames. By contrast, a semi-monocoque is a hybrid combining a tensile stressed skin and a compressive structure made up of longerons and ribs or frames. Other semi-monocoques, not to be confused with true monocoques, include vehicle unibodies, which tend to be composites, and inflatable shells or balloon tanks, both of which ...
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Coachbuilder
A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily fragile, but satisfactory wheels by a separate trade, a wheelwright, held together by iron or steel tyres, was always most critical. From about AD 1000 rough vehicle construction was carried out by a ''wainwright'', a wagon-builder. Later names include ''cartwright'' (a carpenter who makes carts, from 1587); ''coachwright''; and ''coachmaker'' (from 1599). Subtrades include ''wheelwright'', ''coachjoiner'', etc. The word ''coachbuilder'' first appeared in 1794. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2011 Coachwork is the body of an automobile, bus, horse-drawn carriage, or railway carriage. The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs. Coachbuilt body is the British English name for the coachbuilder's product. ''Custom body'' is th ...
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Chrysler Airflow
The Chrysler Airflow is a full-size car produced by Chrysler from 1934 to 1937. The Airflow was the first full-size American production car to use streamlining as a basis for building a sleeker automobile, one less susceptible to air resistance. Chrysler made a significant effort at a fundamental change in automotive design with the Chrysler Airflow, but it was ultimately a commercial failure due to a lack of market acceptance and controversial appearance. Chrysler also marketed a companion model under the DeSoto brand, the DeSoto Airflow, and the appearance was also offered on the Chrysler Imperial. In 2022, Chrysler announced that the Airflow name would be resurrected for an electric crossover SUV. Origin Carl Breer, along with fellow Chrysler engineers Fred Zeder, and Owen Skelton, began a series of wind tunnel tests, with the cooperation of Orville Wright, to study which forms were the most efficient shape created by nature that could suit an automobile. Chrysler bu ...
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General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008. General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. Its four core automobile brands are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC (automobile), GMC, and Cadillac. It also holds interests in Chinese brands Wuling Motors and Baojun as well as DMAX (engines), DMAX via joint ventures. Additionally, GM also owns the BrightDrop delivery vehicle manufacturer, GM Defense, a namesake Defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military; the vehicle safety, security, and information services provider OnStar; the auto parts company ACDelco, a GM Financial, namesake financial lending service; and majority ownership in t ...
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Opel Olympia
The Opel Olympia is a compact car by German automaker Opel, then part of G.M., from 1935 to 1940, and after World War II continued from 1947 to 1953. It was one of the world's first mass-produced cars with a unitary body structure, after the 1934 Citroën Traction Avant; and it was a mass-production success, made in six-figure numbers. Opel achieved this even before the war, all while Hitler promised Germany a "Volkswagen" - a'' 'People's car','' which didn't materialize until 1946. From 1967-1970 the Olympia badge was briefly reused on a later car. The 1935 Olympia was Germany's first mass-produced car with an advanced all-metal unitary body - even a full monocoque in the case of the closed-roof saloon models. This for its time revolutionary technology supplanted the previously customary vehicle body, supported on top of a separate load-bearing chassis, reducing the car's weight by up to 180 kilograms (400 lb.) compared to its predecessor. Production of the unibody design ...
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Citroën Traction Avant
The Citroën Traction Avant () is the world’s first unibody front-wheel-drive car. A range of mostly 4-door saloons and executive cars, were made with four or six-cylinder engines, produced by the French manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957. Approximately 760,000 units were produced. Whilst front-wheel drive and independent suspension had been established in the mass market by Auto Union and subsequently others some years before, the Traction Avant pioneered mass-production of a crash resistant, unitary, monocoque body. Additionally, the car was also an early adopter of rack and pinion steering. Although the car's name emphasized its front-wheel drive power delivery ("Traction Avant" literally means “front traction”), the car stood out at least as much by its much lower profile and stance – made possible by the absence of a separate chassis under the car's unitary body – sharply distinguishing it visually from its contemporaries. History The Traction Avant, F ...
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Computer-aided Design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software are helpful in protecting products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer aided design and drafting (CADD) are also used. Its use in designing electronic systems is known as '' electronic design automation'' (''EDA''). In mechanical design it is known as ''mechanical design automation'' (''MDA''), which includes the process of creating a technical drawing with the use of computer software. CAD software for mechanical design uses either vector-based graphics ...
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