Hi all

I want to know what is a car's undercarriage made of ? What metal ( or even specific what alloy ) ?

I know its something close to aluminium but not quite sure. It looks aluminium!

Also does different car manufacturers ( e.g toyota, honda, hyundai etc) use a different metal for their car's undercarriage?

Thanks

 

In order to answer this we'd need to know why you ask.

 

In order to answer this we'd need to know why you ask.

Well Im designing an inductive loop sensor.

I know the mass of the metal doesn't affect the result of a loop, but the metal type and surface area does.

 

It varies from manufacturer to manufacturer but...
general purpose low carbon steel or aluminum (5182/5575/6061/6063 alloys).

Could even be magnesium/carbon fiber/titanium on exotics.

 

If your looking to detect a car passing over a sensor, check how the traffic control lights work and how their sensors are setup.

I would however think a load cell would be the easiest way to detect a car, rather than using magnetism based sensors.

 

If your looking to detect a car passing over a sensor, check how the traffic control lights work and how their sensors are setup.

I would however think a load cell would be the easiest way to detect a car, rather than using magnetism based sensors.

Many use an inductive loop sensor

 

Traffic light controls vary. They do use an inductive loop to detect a vehicle. However, due to cars using less and less metal they have gone to a method that use cameras or motion detectors of some sort. I haven't had much interaction with the camera type so can't say much about those. The loop type I have installled for traffic lights and even automatic gates for access control. They generally have a wire that creates a loop in the pavement and, as I understand it, when a large enough metal object passes over the loop it will change the frequency response in the loop. That triggers some circuit to do something.

 

The "no moving parts" solution - the inductive loop - wins. I thought for the longest time that there were load cells or switches involved, but the traffic lights around here at least are all inductive loop metal detectors.

 

If your looking to detect a car passing over a sensor, check how the traffic control lights work and how their sensors are setup.

I would however think a load cell would be the easiest way to detect a car, rather than using magnetism based sensors.

Load sensors have been phased out for traffic because they won't pick up a motorcycle. The new ones are all magnetic loops.

 

They are also being phased out due to the cost of maintenance and installation. They have to dig up roads if there is a fault, which is much worse than just replacing a mast-mounted camera module.

With the powerful microprocessors available now for a couple of bucks per IC a camera based solution is definitely better.