A unique series of testing requirements are required for every application involved in the automotive manufacturing process.
It is obvious each time you drive, hail a taxi or hire a car service. The automotive industry greatly impacts daily life in The United States, and it continues affecting the lives of millions of Americans. It is estimated that the U.S. auto parts industry provides over four million indirect and direct job, according to an IHS Markit study. The job requires continuous attention to quality, and this quality continues to be more critical than ever before as the industry keeps evolving.
Plug-in hybrid vehicles hybrid-electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, and electric vehicles are only a couple of the options that are being worked on by manufacturers. With next-generation automotive technologies, the Internet of Things, and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, it is critical for companies to have the right instruments to analyze, test and evaluate modules, parts, and materials, in addition to analyzing data from quality control to R&D.
Within the automotive industry, material testing plays a critical role. Each application that is involved in the manufacturing process needs to have its own unique series of testing requirements, whether that is improving a car body’s metal, strength testing the clutch, or tensile testing seat belts. Also, if any product defects occur, materials testing may be sued for determining how and when it happened.
Materials Tests on Automotive Parts
One critical aspect of automotive safety is the strength of materials. Standards are put into place to make sure material performance is sufficient. Therefore, when choosing materials, it is essential to evaluate their strength to make sure that standards are satisfied.
Material strength is mainly determined by the metal materials composition, although with polymers this depends on the density and type of molecules that are used.
A material composition analysis needs to conducted to ensure there is stable material strength. To do that, product quality control team members conduct composition analyses and strength evaluations of raw materials that are used for manufacturing automobiles, including resins, metals and other types of raw materials. Hardness, bending, compression, and tensile tests are utilized for strength evaluations. Material composition evaluations require compound analysis and inorganic element analysis. In addition to materials acceptance inspections by suppliers, defects are also analyzed by manufacturers during the process, and the information is used to improve processes.
It is necessary to test failure of parts, static characteristics of springs, and strength evaluations of various materials – including films, rubbers, plastics, and metals. They might include material evaluations, acceptance inspections and tests for confirming characteristics changes due to machining. Testing should be conducted in accordance with ASTM, ISO< and other standards.
Evaluation of the suspension, engine, and car body are critical components of the testing process. Vehicle hoods and doors are tested in order to evaluate sheet metal strength. Universal testing machines are utilized for measuring the mechanical properties of high strength, lighter weight alloys that are used to produce car body panels as well as other components. Safety and fuel economy are both critical, so, therefore, it is essential to use high-strength, lightweight materials. Tensile testing is required in order to perform quality control and develop this strong kind of sheet metal. Therefore, manufacturers are able to determine elastic modulus, rupture strength, and process-hardening coefficients (n-values).
Tensile testing is a true workhouse when it comes to the automotive testing process. It is used for evaluating seats, seat belts, and o-rings along with the car body. Seat belts are tested for their breaking strength, which is obviously a crucial component of automotive safety – in addition to a car seat’s foam rubber. Compression testing is also used to evaluate car seats. Since drivers spend lots of time inside of their cars, comfort is very important. Developing comfortable car seats occur through identifying restorative and repulsive forces, and then developing a database that is linked to subjective evaluations. Due to the size of the seat, often a wide-design testing instrument must be used.
For manual transmissions, the drive train and engine are connected through the clutch at each change. The clutch functions thousands or hundred of times on a drive, so optimal tuning is required. On high-output engines, the drive train/engine connections strength has to be sufficient for transmitting engine power. So strength testing must be implemented so that clutch spring force can be evaluated. A machine that has various jigs, including displacement measuring devices and compression plates used for spring compression, can allow even slight distortions to be measured.
Finding Defects
When product defects occur, they must be investigated in order to determine what caused the defect, like how it occurs and what damaged a part. In these situations, morphological observations, surface analyses, and microscopic analyses are also done. Strength evaluations are conducted on materials of defect parts as well in order to pinpoint the cause from several different perspectives. Other potential assessments may include evaluating the processes leading up to problem and damage via endurance evaluations along with strength evaluations conducted under simulated use conditions, as well as failure tests of parts and products.
No matter what vehicle is being produced, high levels of reliability and safety are required by the automotive industry. Saving energy, improving efficiency and reducing environmental impact are all important factors as well in this process. Each time you get into your car, you should remember that your journey was made possible of materials testing.
