China 
Africa 
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Car Body Structures
Published in Raghu Echempati, Primer on Automotive Lightweighting Technologies, 2021
The core element of any car is the body structure. The body is an extremely important part of any automobile for a number of reasons and demands key design considerations. The body should connect all the components, house the drive train, as well as provide crash load paths. Additionally, the body structure should be able to carry and protect passengers as well as cargo. Lastly, the body structure should be joinable with other components in addition to being lightweight to provide optimum fuel economy and performance. The following are the three main design concepts. However, tubular space frame design and backbone chassis design are discussed. Body-on-frame (Figure 5.1)Monocoque (or single shell) (Figure 5.2)Unibody (Figure 5.3)
Automotive Architecture
Published in Patrick Hossay, Automotive Innovation, 2019
For the first 50 years or so of the automobile, the basic structure of the car was defined by a two-dimensional steel frame with a body placed on top, called a body-on-frame design. Typically called a ladder frame, the steel members could be open C, hat, or boxed channels depending on design and strength requirements. A slight variation on this theme, called a perimeter frame, widened the frame near the middle to allow a lower seat position and center of gravity. By adding crossed supporting members in the center, torsional loads could be better handled in what was called a cruciform frame. More dramatic variations included GM’s X-Frame which supported millions of the carmaker’s full-sized cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and was defined by a center cross without parallel side members. Somewhat similarly, the Lotus Elan was one of a few 1960s cars that used a major center box tube to define an “I frame”, or torque tube backbone chassis. The large rectangular tube running down the center of the car made for a simple and cost-effective structure that allowed a low center of gravity and exhibited good torsional stiffness, though it left a lot to be desired in passenger protection. All of these examples, and more, defined variations of the fundamental body-on-frame approach that dominated automotive structures into the 1960s. And all shared the basic idea that a structural frame under the body would manage the principle loads and provide stiffness, while the body above would largely be coming along for the ride.
Body and Chassis
Published in Andrew Livesey, Basic Motorsport Engineering, 2012
The chassis is the load bearing part of the vehicle. That is to say it carries the weight of the load and the passengers, and locates the engine, transmission, steering and suspension. On most popular cars the chassis and the body are one and the same; but on specialized cars and goods vehicles separate chassis are used. There are three main types of chassis: these are ladder chassis, cruciform chassis and backbone chassis.
Aluminum foam to improve crash safety performance: a numerical simulation approach for the automotive industry
Published in Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, 2023
Omar Fragoso-Medina, Fernando Velázquez-Villegas
The typical car structures are body on frame, unibody, tubular space frame and backbone chassis, where the first two are the most widely used in the automotive industry (European Aluminium Association 2013). Unibody structure is oriented to on road applications, it offers better handling and ride comfort; its main components of front-end are bumper, crushcan, subframe, midrail and upperrail (see Figure 1a near here). In the other hand, body on frame is preferred for towing or carrying heavy loads and for off-road driving, having as front-end main components, horn, rails and crossmembers (see Figure 1b).