Rail car body design procedure series#

The space frame principle assigns a specific task to each material and each component. The extruded sections bridge spaces, the cast nodes connect the components, the aluminum panels close off the spaces and lend rigidity to the framework. What makes the space frame principle so impressively elegant from a technical perspective is that it separates the tasks of the various components of the body. The basic structure of the Audi Space Frame (ASF) resembles a skeleton or the framework of a timbered building. The body of the TT compact sports car is based on a hybrid aluminum and steel construction, and the A7 Sportback and the new A6 (Combined fuel consumption in l/100 km: 9.6 вЂ“ 4.4 Combined CO 2-emissions in g/km: 225 вЂ“ 114)** have steel bodies with a large fraction of aluminum.

In the current model line-up, the A8 luxury sedan and the R8 high-performance sports car represent the ASF principle in its purest form. By the end of 2010 alone, the company had produced some 550,000 vehicles with the ASF body вЂ“ far more than any other manufacturer in the world. The arc spans three generations of the A8 and also includes the A2 along with its legendary three-liter version, the A2 1.2 TDI. Since this time Audi has built on its competitive edge step by step. The launch was preceded by a development process lasting 12 years.

Rail car body design procedure series#

When it introduced the first A8 in 1994, Audi had not only developed the radically new ASF design and put it into series production, it had also developed all of the steps required for its production.