TPT May 2009

P roduction & P rocessing of A utomotive T ube

E ven as it virtually abolishes the concept ‘under the hood’ , the high-performanceAtom sports car designed by Britain’s Ariel Motor Co epitomizes tubing for automotive applications. The car which has been called ‘driving nirvana’ has very little bodywork. Its exposed chassis, fashioned of large-diameter steel tube welded by the bronze and

tungsten inert gas (TIG) process, gives the vehicle a skeletal look that declares ‘supercar’ .

While it scarcely seems to allow for internal apparatus, this machine named for the fundamental building block in nature does have it, and it is as tube-intensive as the car’s exoskeletal profile. The Atom has an internal combustion engine; a six- speed manual gearbox; a hydraulic clutch; and steering, suspension, and braking systems – none of them in the least exotic to a garage mechanic qualified for four- cylinder work. For as long as fuel-powered automobiles must be activated, steered, turned, stopped – that is, for as long as they are driven – even a car built for acceleration from zero to 60mph in under four seconds will be dependent on its delivery systems.

From the wide tubing that encloses a rack-and- pinion gearset to the narrow tubing for pneumatic and hydraulic fluid transport, the products of tube making are essential to the automotive enterprise.

They have been from the beginning. And they will be when the Ariel Atom, now in its third incarnation, reaches, say, its tenth.

 With a steel tubular chassis, the Atom is the epitome of innovative usage of automotive tube (photo courtesy of Ariel Motor Co – www.arielmotor.co.uk)

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M ay 2009

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