Soon, a car that will take care of its health!

With new advances in automotive technology, it would now be possible to know about the health of your car in advance.

Nothing is more irritating than your car breaking down in the middle of the road while you are going to attend an important meeting. But with new advances in automotive technology, it would now be possible to know about the health of your car in advance.

HT Image

According to a paper presented at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in Orlando, cars in future may be able to automatically detect damaged parts and estimate how long they will last. Researchers now are attempting to work out the glitches, but such fully self-monitoring cars could be on the road within the next several years, reports Discovery.

"A structural health-monitoring system for cars would do the same thing for mechanical health that a fuel gauge does for fuel level. It would indicate how quickly the suspension or other vehicle part is using up its available durability. The key to implementing these kinds of health monitoring systems is that false alarms a sensor telling you your car is falling apart when in reality the car is fine cannot be tolerated," said lead researcher Douglas Adams, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

The researchers focused their work on auto suspension, the system that supports the upper part of a vehicle on its axles. Their test car was an Isuzu Impulse set on top of an automatic shaker that simulated the bumps and jolts of a car ride. They attached sensors that measure vibrations to the bottom of the car's strut, steering knuckle-control arm connection, and at other places within the suspension.

The engineers then introduced damage into the system by loosening a bolt that connects the steering knuckle to the control arm through a ball joint. The collected vibration data was analyzed using computer software that not only enabled them to identify the damage, but also to quantify it. The vibrations are almost like human heartbeats, in that a specialist can detect what sounds healthy or not. (ANI)