That’s kind of the engineering dream, isn’t it? Build everything out of one material? It would make manufacturing so much easier. And even better if that material were recyclable. Imagine taking a spaceship to another planet, then using the spaceship (even the fuel) for buildings, equipment, tools, clothes, even food! So how close are we to this dream? Can we build a car out of one material yet? Or, how few materials do we need to build a car?
I know some people will ask for the definition of a material, but I’ll leave it to people to make and defend their own interpretation.
Can we build one out of metal, maybe spring powered? ABS, like Lego?
3D printing is very much in line with the concepts you mentioned - though not really the direct OP, I have seen on TV the ‘manufacture’ a of working adjustable pipe wrench all done complete as a assembly. So they are able to manufacture engaged rotating gears and ready to work as a single unit - these seem to be of all the same raw material. IIRC this was done by optically scanning a regular adjustable wrench from different perspectives.
To make anything remotely like an auto out of just one material is impossible, you would need a material that was both a conductor and an insulator, rigid and flexable, transparent and opaque. Can’t be done with current or near future materials.
Peace
LIONsob
All depends on what you define as a car, the OP specified the possibility of ‘spring powered’. I can see that a simple car,more of a child’s wagon, may be able to be manufactured out of a ABS like material or even all metallic (yes including the wheels).
Now how far that can be scaled up including the spring power plant, how long does it last and how big does it have to be to be considered a car is still up for debate.
I took the op to mean a semi moderen automobile with things like an electical system, suspension and internal or external combustion or electric propulsion along with some sort of body work. what you are describing is a cart and you would still need some sort of lubricant to keep the moving parts from friction welding themselves together.
Peace
LIONsob
Well you need to start somewhere, and a cart is what I came up with.
Yes lubrication is a big issue if you want it to last more then a few blocks, was thinking of if there was any other such materials like graphite where it’s powered form is a lubricant.
Also gravity power seems to be the best way to go on such a project, followed by wind powered.
to the OP: no, not easily. you might in theory be able to make all of the metal parts and some of the plastic parts from one material (e.g. steel or aluminum) but the wiring and electronics would not be able to. The wiring needs insulation. Also, it’s not practical to use one material for, say, the engine. Steel pistons would be way too heavy; aluminum connecting rods wouldn’t be as robust as forged steel ones are. An aluminum crankshaft is right out.
and nevermind the interior. I wouldn’t want to sit on metal seats.
as for plastics, well, no, because in body applications they don’t have the desired range of characteristics. You can make a rigid body structure out of (reinforced) plastic but you don’t have the elastic/plastic characteristics of metal which make crumple zones work. Plus, even if it was an electric car, you still need a lot of iron and copper in the motor.
Could you make a diesel car without any electrical system? That would solve the conductor/insulator problem, at least.
And even if using steel for all of the metal would be impractical, that’s different from impossible. I think that to even start this discussion you have to posit that the single-material car would be impractical, because if it weren’t, we’d already be doing it.
Oh, and for lubrication, you could probably do a lot with ball bearings.
No, it’s an engineering nightmare.
Do you have a degree in engineering? I’m guessing not. Finding the right material for the right job is a HUGE part of engineering.
certainly not one which could meet current emissions regulation. But yes, a strictly mechanically governed diesel could run without electricity. Hand-cranking is not going to be feasible, so it’d have to have air start. but heaven help you if your tanks leak.
the oil film inside an engine, lubricating the critical parts, is on the order of single-digit thousandths of an inch.
If a non-electrical diesel engine can be made it would seem like the fuel could be used as a lubricant also. This gives you 2 materials to work with and who’s to say that you can’t route the fuel lines through the wheel bearings too.
That’s exactly my point. If we had the right material for EVERY job, that would solve a lot of problems. The 3D printing example is very good. If we could 3D print cars, that’d be as revolutionary as the assembly line.
yes, for much of their history diesel injection pumps were fuel-lubricated, so it’s not impossible.
you’re confusing a process for the material used for the workpiece. we can 3D print cars now. We can’t 3D print all of the materials necessary to make a durable car.
One could construct a hand-cranked spring starter system for the hypothetical diesel. Kind of like the ones lawn mowers used to have, but with a much stronger steel spring. The hand crank would have to be geared down considerably!
This is comparable to the problems being faced by the RepRap project, except they are attempting to build a 3D printer which can print as many of its own parts as possible. In addition to the electronics, they’re finding that man of the mechanical parts - shafts, bearings, belts and chains - still need to be made from hardened, machined steel parts. It is possible to print gears with the better printers, but they don’t last nearly long as actual machined metal gears. Your hypothetical all-one-material car is going to have the same problem - either you accept bearings and gears that wear out quickly, or you make the entire thing out of hardened metals.
It’s got material (almost) right in the name!