‘Nutritional strategies to help you shed those extra pounds to feel good,’ says the screaming headline of a health blog. Weight reduction brings health improvements and can make people look and feel better. The world of auto engineering is also obsessed with weight reduction, though of a different kind - that of vehicles. Termed ‘Automotive lightweighting’ (reducing vehicle weight using lighter materials and smart engineering), this school of automobile engineering pays attention to building vehicles that are less heavy and more fuel efficient, along with a reduced CO2 emissions footprint.
For a variety of reasons, lighter vehicles are stealing a march over heavier ones. In the process, they have taken quite a few basic laws we learnt in our Physics primer and turned them on their head. For instance, basic Physics would have us believe that if two otherwise identical vehicles collide, the lighter one will sustain the greater damage. Aluminium and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) are definitely lighter than steel, but these are engineered to be as strong as steel. Sturdiness is just one aspect of lightweight automobile; there is a lot more that weighs up in their favour – like improved road handling and shorter braking distance, as compared to heavier automobiles. Imaginatively done, structural weight saving can make room where there was none, for add-on extras, which give new dimensions to occupant safety and comfort.
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