In this blog post, we will look at the core of the mechanical engineering technology that is concentrated in cars and find out what direction future automotive technology will evolve in.
Among the many ways to describe the difference between humans and animals, one of them is that “humans use tools.” Yes, humans have been making and developing tools for survival since the beginning. At first, tools for survival, such as simple breaking and swinging, were developed to create a difference between humans and other animals, and now they are being used to make human lives more convenient through complex operations. Humans have developed along with and through tools. The development of such tools and the engineering discipline of the tools themselves is mechanical engineering. Today, machines are everywhere in human life. Among the many machines, the representative embodiment of mechanical engineering technology is the automobile.
Cars are not as large as airplanes or ships. However, because the smaller the volume, the smaller the size of the parts and the less precise they are, the technology must be more delicate and sophisticated even if the same principle is applied. That is why cars are more intensive. And above all, cars are machines that are used very closely in everyday life, so they must provide intuitive design and ease of use for users. People may think that a car just needs to roll, but in reality, it is a very complex system in which numerous parts and technologies are organically connected to work together. This means that, in addition to technical perfection, reliability must also be considered. It is not just a machine with wheels that just rolls, but one that must be able to be driven safely every day.
One of the representative technologies concentrated in automobiles is the turbo engine. In order for an automobile engine to generate strong power, it is good to burn a lot of fuel. In order to burn a lot of fuel, it is good to put in a lot of fuel, but it is also good to fan the fuel so that it burns well, that is, to blow air into it. A method of blowing a lot of air. You may think of a fan around you. However, if you turn on a fan, you will not see any effect because the energy is used to turn on the fan. Then, how can you turn on a fan without using energy? The idea that came to mind was to use the energy that is wasted. If you think about it, if you blow air in one direction, air will naturally come out of the other direction. Instead of just letting the air out, can’t you use the force of the air to turn the fan? If you can turn it, you can blow air in without any effort. In other words, the incoming and outgoing air will help each other out, saving you energy.
This technology has many elements that can be applied to everyday life. For example, the idea of reusing this “waste energy” in various mechanical devices and electrical equipment other than automobiles is also important in terms of energy conservation. As environmental protection and energy conservation are important today, technologies that maximize efficiency, such as automobile turbochargers, are likely to be used more widely in various industries in the future. A simple idea can make a big difference.
Another technology is the spoiler. When a train enters a platform and is moving fast, the body of a person standing there is sucked into it. This is because the side where the air is moving fast has less pressure than the side where the air is not moving fast. At this time, if you think of the train as the center, it is like the air is passing quickly around it, and the train is also subjected to a force that sucks it in all directions. However, it does not sway because the direction is symmetrical. The same is true for cars. When a car is moving fast, it is subjected to forces that pull it into the air from all directions. The forces on the left and right sides are symmetrical and cancel each other out, but the upward force remains. This is why a car floats off the ground the faster it moves, and the wheels are not perfectly attached to the ground. This can cause the car to skid when it changes direction suddenly in a corner. This increases the radius of the turn, which takes a lot of time and can lead to accidents. To prevent this, cars are equipped with spoilers. You may not be familiar with the term, but you’ve probably seen something like a wing on the trunk lid of a sports car that makes a loud noise. That’s a spoiler. A spoiler is like a sail on a ship. If the sail of a ship gives it the power to pull the ship forward, the spoiler gives the car the power to press it down. Pressing down on the car keeps the wheels perfectly glued to the ground and allows it to turn corners in a short radius without slipping.
Technologies such as turbo engines and spoilers are only a small part of the technologies applied to cars, and the parts described here are only very simple principles. There are many technologies in actual cars, and most of them are inspired by simple principles, but they are applied through complex calculations and trial and error. In other words, a car is not just a rolling box with four wheels, but a work of art that incorporates numerous mechanical engineering technologies. This incredibly complex and amazing car is still being developed even at this very moment. But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg of mechanical engineering technology. It’s just like the sampling corner of a large supermarket. Mechanical engineering is as vast as the sea and as complex as the human mind.
And the development of automotive technology does not stop here. Even at this very moment, next-generation technologies such as autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, and hydrogen vehicles are being developed, and these are the results of the convergence of existing mechanical engineering technology and new IT technology. It is no longer an era where a car can be explained by mechanical engineering alone. Now, various disciplines are cooperating with each other to create a huge complex system called a car.
