I have always been curious: What is the purpose of the lines on the engine cover?

Almost all cars have lines on the engine bonnet, with the lowest two starting, and some cars even have multiple lines. The function of these lines is actually not that mysterious. They basically serve two purposes: shaping and strengthening.

Shaping

It is said that curves are the soul in painting and photography. Many things will have a better overall effect if they have curves. Without curves, they will look bland.

The same is true for cars. For example, the car above, the front of the car is simply ugly based on current aesthetics. The entire engine cover is bland, and at first glance you can only see the seams between the various plates.

With the addition of lines, the front of the car looks more plump, three-dimensional and layered.

And the family-style front design of many models echoes the hood lines. For example, Lexus's large grille can be extended along the hood line to the windshield, making it look more imposing.

There is also this BMW, the hood lines echo the iconic grille. These are all optimized designs in terms of styling, making the car more beautiful. Just like men have muscles and women have hips, they are more attractive.

Reinforcement

The reinforcement mentioned here does not simply increase the strength of the engine cover, because the engine cover itself does not bear any stress and can only cover the engine room. And from a safety perspective, the engine cover cannot be too hard. There are mainly these reasons.

1. Pedestrian protection

After a car hits a pedestrian, the person's upper body will fall towards the engine hood under the action of inertia. If the engine hood is too hard, it will cause serious damage to the human body.

2. Protection of occupants in the car

If we pay attention, we will find that the engine covers of many cars that have been involved in serious rear-end collisions will be bent. In fact, this is also a kind of protection. There is a collapse guide design in the engine cover, which allows the engine cover to fold in a pre-designed shape in the event of a collision. This prevents the engine cover from being inserted into the cockpit and threatening the safety of the occupants.

3. Reduce weight, reduce weight

In the movie Initial D, Takumi and Kyoichi raced an 86 until the cylinder exploded. Tofu Daddy changed the engine and got another one. Black engine cover. At that time, many people were wondering: Why was the engine cover so black? In fact, this is a carbon fiber engine cover, used to reduce weight. Not only racing cars, but all cars are designed with this idea in mind: to reduce weight as much as possible without affecting performance and cost.

So for the sake of safety and weight reduction, the engine cover cannot and does not need to be made so hard. After all, it is not a bulldozer. Generally, car engine covers have a double-layer structure. The inner layer is a skeleton and a crush guide design (the design in the red circle in the picture, the engine cover will bend from here when it hits), and the outer layer is a steel plate skin.

Subject to weight and safety restrictions, the skin steel plates are very thin, and the surface area of ??the engine cover is very large. If the entire steel plate is directly applied, the middle will inevitably bend due to gravity. After the lines are punched out on the steel plate, the bends at the lines can strengthen it so that the engine cover will not be soft.

This is the original intention of the engine cover line design, do you understand?

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.