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What is it like as a automotive engineer?
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I know there are types of automotive engineers, so please list what your position is.
I'm only in 8th grade, but I want to start preparing in high school, and I feel like it would be easier if I had a plan. In case it matters, I am in the US, and will get a bachelors degree, and maybe a masters. Here are some questions I have:
What is it like in the day to day life?
Do you have to work overtime some times?
Is there tasks you have to complete, and after that you can leave, or do you have to keep working for however many hours you are supposed to?
Do you work online, in office, or both?
If you work in an office, what's your environment like?
Does it get boring?
What do you spend most of your time doing?
What are some things you like and don't like?
You don't have to answer these, they are just examples.
Top Comment: Automotive Engineer with a Mechatronics specialty. Working in R&D for a tier 1 fuel systems and de-pollution supplier. Lots of lab testing, prototyping and a few visit to the manufacturers (Germans mostly in my case). I have to work within a budget and find solutions to problems that arise while developing new products. Lots of fun with good colleagues, serious deadlines and rigorous reporting necessary with overtime when needed (ie: your CARB cycles end at 7PM and you need to check the gas chromatography results etc...). Crash testing, car burning, working between -40C and +70C when needed (with gas mask and air supply on). Nice variety of work, more chemistry than you could imagine using as an engineer and a lot of plastics technology (blow molding with fusible nucleus etc, 3D printing for prototypes). I loved doing that for a few years than got an itch to move across the world and ended working in the lumber industry and now in the elevator industry.
Help me better understand armored engineering vehicles
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I'm curious about the differences between various countries' armored engineering vehicles (referring to tank-based engineering vehicles that aren't dedicated to bridging or breaching or some other specific task). Some, like most of the post-war AVREs or the M728, have wide-bore cannons for demolitions, others like the IMR series have cranes, others like the Kodiak have excavator arms, and some countries (the USA) don't have general-purpose AEVs at all. The presence of a dozer blade or mine plow seems like the only constant. Why have different countries chosen the features that they have?
Top Comment: Because they're specialist vehicles, it means often you'll wind up with different balances of specialties. This is often also not in a vacuum, and often includes capabilities scattered across different vehicles. Like to a point the US Army operates: M1150 ABV: Line charge launching, mine plow/dozer blade vehicle M9 ACE: Dozer/earthmover M2 EFV: Bradley with engineers and hand tools in the back AVLB: obvious. The recovery section's ARV also has an A-frame type crane and a small dozer blade for bonus capabilities. The US omits a dedicated minelayer vehicle as the various US mine dispensers are modular/designed to mount to helicopters/trailers/cargo trucks, there's uparmored but otherwise conventional bulldozers and military bucket loaders and similar. This is because for the most part the US Army's engineer needs are focused on offensive maneuver warfare. Most of those tools are for the breach, while the ACE can make holes one it's main jobs is making berms and earthworks go away, or filling anti-tank ditches (or towing MICLIC trailers, and sometimes moving engineers forward). Basically the design will focus on what needs to be done under some fire by that specific country. Some countries value the ability to make some kind of fortification under fire because it means that in less than safe environments they can still be cranking out trenchlines, or their model for gapping ditches is different. That's when you wind up with a excavator arm. Budget also plays a major role as some very basic engineer vehicles are just armored bulldozers made from old tanks and nothing else. Like we've got different kinds of hammers because different trades have different hammer needs. Because different countries have different engineer focus, that's why you get some divergence in designs and capabilities. Demolition guns fell out of fashion because precision direct fire worked almost as well, and stuff like delayed fuse HE tank rounds did the business without needing a specialist vehicle.
Why aren't turbine engines used in hybrid vehicles?
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I'm a mech eng., but my background is more on the structural / systems / robotics side of things. I've been wondering about using a turbine in a serial hybrid car, instead of a gasoline IC engine, like in a Prius, for example. It seems to me that a steady-state engine would be preferable for electric generation in a series hybrid system since the battery can act as an accumulator for the system.
I was also under the impression that Brayton cycles were more efficient than Otto cycles, but after a bit of digging, I found I was wrong. The thermal efficiency of the Brayton and Otto cycles are the same for the same compression ratio, with the advantage of the Brayton cycle being able to operate at lower temperatures and the advantage of simpler cooling but the disadvantage of the engine seeing high temperatures all the time instead of in bursts.
What other factors am I not considering?
I couldn't find information on other factors since it is in that weird middle ground on Google where it's not common knowledge and it's not hyper specific.
Is it a power density consideration? Is it a pollution issue? Is it fuel consumption rate? Is it not practical to retool an entire production line when you already make a sufficiently good engine?
Thanks in advance for helping me with this thought experiment.
Top Comment:
Turbines suffer in small packages required for passenger cars, anything below 1,000hp is not cost effective and has really low efficiency.
There is a company that puts hybrid electric turbine drivetrains into 5-ton trucks and the like. Apparently it's cost effective but they won't share price data.
The best part about turbine powerplants is they can do below 25ppm Nox without any catylictic converters, etc. But again, that's on CNG.
The tires on electric vehicles
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Hi, I tried searching all over google but every article only talks about thread depth. I was wrinkling my brain thinking over this little detail on car tires. The thickness of the tires on a Dodge Challenger Hellcat are (according to tire purchasing sites) 275mm thick. The tesla P100D uses 245mm, the Tesla 3 uses 235mm. The BMW i3 uses 195.My original train of thought was that thicker tires give additional friction (surface area) and therefore the thicker the tire the better it is for accelerating. (More friction = less slip)Now hold that thought. We know electric motors can almost instantly provide 100% of their speed, while engines require a ramp-up time, which is why the Tesla beats the Hellcat on the 1/4 mile but loses drastically afterwards.If acceleration is so much faster on electric cars (Tesla & i3), why do they use thinner tires? wouldn't it be logical to use thicker tires to make acceleration faster?
Top Comment:
What you're talking about is almost always referred to as the width of the tires, not thickness.
Tires are normally described as being wide or narrow.
I hope I'm not being too pedantic, just trying to help. There are already a lot of good answers here.
M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle
Main Post: M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle
Top Comment: Is that a sheriden?
Day in the life of an automotive engineer
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Hello! I'm thinking about doing automotive engineering in uni in september, but i just want to what the daily life of one is. Are you stuck in a little office all day or is there more to it? Also, i'm in the UK if that makes difference to what one would do in the UK and USA.
Thank you very much in advance
Top Comment: There are so many different jobs an automotive engineer could do that I don’t think it makes sense to ask what it would typically look like. You could get into design and model parts, simulation, spend your days on test track if you got into a testing job... manage software projects or document parts and part numbers and such or a million other things really. You could choose to work for a small supplier in a cozy little company or a gigantic complicated beast of a company with 5k colleagues around you and many thousands more in other places. Any preference about what you would actually LIKE to do?
Vehicle Performance jobs
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Background:
I'm an aspiring automotive engineer with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. I'm planning to do a master's in automotive engineering from Germany in the near future, and work there afterwards.
What I'm particularly passionate about is vehicle performance engineering: vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics for high performance (road) cars. I presume such jobs would most likely be provided by the likes of Mercedes AMG and BMW M.
Question:
If you are already working in a similar company, what exactly is it that you do? And how did you get there?
Please feel free to add some advice based on your experience.
Top Comment: Studied audiology, specialized in numerical acoustics/simulation. Started my career at a supplier simulating vibration and sound radiation from components. Changed fields slightly by changing to a different supplier and applying digital sound design to cars of different European OEMs. Made a lot of contacts. Ended up as engine sound designer for one of them. Currently designing in-car systems for sound design and still tuning some of the sounds myself, which makes for a really nice mix of programming, system architecture/design, strategizing and hands-on work with the actual cars. tl;dr: About 8 years of gathering experience and contacts at suppliers before eventually switching to the OEM side.
Engineering Certificates don't mean shit in NSW.
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Over 3 years I did a nut and bolt restoration on a 1994 Toyota Supra. Stripped down to the bare metal. $22k respray. Every single component was replaced with its much stronger counterpart. Every mechanical and electrical part aswell. In the end was essentially a brand new 1994 Toyota Supra with todays automotive technology.
On the dyno it made 1142kw wheel and even with that amount of power, it drove exactly like stock. Engineering was a month long process which ticked every single box NSW road rules require of someone to legal drive a modified car. After $6,500, I was handed the engineering certificate and it felt like a massive weight off my shoulders not having to look behind them every 2 turns for highway patrol.
My first drive out with every single hoop I had to jump through in regards to doing the right thing meant absolutely nothing. I am pulled over by a mouth breathing, almost inbred looking HWP officer who honestly looked like he was 1 zinger box away from a heart attack. He takes aim at my tyres which are dot approved by the RMS as road legal tyres (Mickey Thompson ET Street R) and proceeds to scream that they are infact illegal since there is no tread on them. Orders me to open the engine bay and attempts to look for whatever he can to defect. After maybe my 5th attempt in trying to get his attention and explain to him that my engineering certificate falls inline with all the modifications done, he simply looks at me and says "yeah m8 I don't care about your engineering certificate".
After about 20 minutes of him walking around the car trying to defect what he can, he starts loosing his cool which you can visibly notice since he cant spot anything to defect. Another 15 minutes go by of him sitting in his HWP car on the phone, he comes back with a red label defect sticker and defects ... my headlight globes not being OEM genuine from Toyota from a car made back in 1994... Yes. A red label which forced me to get the car towed and attend an inspection site within 7 days or my rego gets cancelled.
So to anyone out there going down the route of obtaining an engineering certificate, be wary that even following every law to the tooth, it will still be a flip of a coin if you get pulled over.
End rant.
Top Comment: A NSW cop being a total fuckwit on a power trip? I can hardly believe it
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