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Asked by freddo to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 30 Jan 2015.
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Sinead Quirke answered on 30 Jan 2015:
Like with most questions in engineering what do you want the car to do? To be light and therefore quick but not very strong or on the other extreme do u want it to be bullet proof?
Nowadays a lot of cars use plastics and composites rather than metal.
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Padraic Morrissey answered on 31 Jan 2015:
Hi Freddo, that’s a good question. Like Sinead said it really depends on what kind of car you’re designing. In formula 1 (if you ever watch those races) they try to make cars as light as possible so they can go really fast around a track, but also strong enough so that it won’t fall apart in a crash. The two types of materials they use on F1 cars is aluminium and something called carbon fibre, which is a strong and light plastic. That’s why those cars are so expensive!
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Nathan Quinlan answered on 31 Jan 2015:
Steel is wonderfully strong, but it’s heavy and it rusts. Aluminium is not quite so strong. An aluminium design has to be thicker than a steel one for the same job, so that it will be strong enough (won’t break) and stiff enough (won’t bend). But aluminium is so light that the end result can be lighter and still strong enough. But it’s expensive too. Titanium is even lighter and more expensive. So most cars you see are mostly steel. Then there are thousands of steels to choose from… Aluminium is used a lot in aeroplanes.
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Aislinn Coghlan answered on 2 Feb 2015:
Most commercially available high performance cars are made entirely out of aluminium. This is the same metal they use in coca-cola cans!
I know that some very fancy cars, such as formula 1, don’t use metal in the body at all. Instead they use carbon fibre as it is very light and rigid. however these cars are not built to last – they are used for short intense periods of time
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