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https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/13/another-benefit-to-evs-no-dead-weights-added-to-the-car/>
"It doesn’t matter how long you’re into cars, there’s always something new to
learn. Recently, I learned why some cars seem to have what appears to be
worthless dead weight built in. It turns out that that sometimes, there’s good
reason to add weight to a vehicle. Pretty often, it’s to make up for problems
that an internal combustion engine brings to the table.
I won’t go through the whole story (you can find that at HACKADAY), but most of
the time it comes down to vibrations. Most combustion engines have weight that
moves back and forth rapidly. Great care has to be taken to balance the weight
of pistons, connecting rods, crankshafts, and valvetrain parts that move. If
these are even just a little out of whack, the engine will run poorly and
slowly destroy itself. The designs of some engines (most often the common
inline 4-cylinder) is naturally unbalanced, and can require extra moving parts
to reduce vibrations.
No matter how hard they try, some engines are going to naturally vibrate more
than others. Plus, road vibrations and other parts of the drivetrain can make
their own vibrations. So, to make up for that, manufacturers have to find other
ways to reduce the vibrations the car’s passengers feel. In some cases, adding
some dead weight disrupts the harmonics of a vibration, seriously deadening it.
In many older vehicles, the dead weight got added after the car was designed.
Today, computer aided design makes it easier to design that extra weight into
existing parts, effectively hiding the dead weight.
These are both small potatoes compared to the active weights some vehicles are
starting to have. Like the tuned mass dampers found in some large buildings,
some cars have small weights that are electronically moved in such a way as to
cancel out engine or road vibrations. Or, the truly massive weights that come
in some trucks to keep them from flipping over."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
