Car Body Designing

Saturday, April 28, 2012
Automobile designing tracks back to the 19th century. That was the time when internal combustion engines were developed and engineers were focusing to develop a motor vehicle, which should be capable enough of moving and carrying loads. In this attempt different models of vehicles were presented driven by different fuel sources.

Three wheeled vehicle, Hippo mobile and different other models were on board. But the very first car like design was presented in 1894 by Benz called Velo. Since then more and more progress was made in this area of designing and different models of car came from time to time. Different companies started their production lines and thus a new sector emerged on the global map which we call today as Automobile sector.

Now a days, Car body designing has progressed to such an altitude that old designs appeared entirely different. The new modern automobile body designs are followed by various substantial changes, the cars are normally designed closed with the usage of glasses, Composite materials, and variety of alloys.
The materials are changed with the objective to make it more fuel efficient, to improve its aesthetic look and to build interior more ergonomic and comfortable. Different companies are competing with one another to bring such a design that is more attractive to the consumers.

There are various designing aspects of a car body like the exterior look its rear and front features etc, the interior aspect of the design includes seats, controls, pillars etc, and the color with trim designing of the car. The exterior body of the car is the primary object of designing. Normally drawings are developed on different CAD soft,wares. The drawing of the exterior proposed design is thoroughly discussed in an automobile manufacturing industry.

Once the exterior design is approved a prototype of the model is developed to interpret the design physically. Then manufacturing feasibility of the model is discussed. Then simultaneously during the prototype development automobile interior body is also considered and a design is proposed. The interior design is then embedded in the exterior body of the prototype.

The trim and color design also works in collaboration with interior design, the trim design is actually about the fabric, carpet, glasses, wood works, interior plastic working etc, so as to decorate the interior of the vehicle with few external features as well like side glasses. Then a suitable attractive coloring scheme is suggested and on approval it is applied to the prototype of the car. Now the prototype is completed.

The prototype is then discussed and a market survey for this prototype design is launched. When it is specified that there is enough demand for this prototype design, then this design is forwarded to mass production within the automobile manufacturing facility.

Then various tools are developed like dies to shape the sheets in accordance with the design of the car. So for each external specification of the car special dies are developed. Simultaneously jigs are designed to perform multiple drilling operations and finally fixtures for the welding of internal structure on which all parts like rear, front, sides are assembled. When the tools are developed the car design is ready for mass production.