Electronics and materials for chassis and body

The advent of electronics to enhance ride, handling, and braking, and the application of computer-aided design and engineering to create ever stiffer structures, have together transformed both chassis and body technology.

For the modern car, the chassis represents the link between the road and the vehicle, including systems for suspension, braking, steering, and tires-all of which have benefited, directly or indirectly, from the active application of electronics. As for the body, the enormous strides made by engineers in enhancing structural stiffness have resulted in levels of rigidity undreamed of even a dozen years ago. But as well as electronics and body stiffness, there are other issues with relevance to chassis and body engineering: weight savings; the control of noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH); crashworthiness; and materials science.