Laboratory for Automotive Engineering

If you stand in the centre of the Laboratory for Automotive Engineering and face the entrance door on the corridor side, you are standing directly on the vehicle pit covered with grids. This is used by parking a car, lorry or bus over it and then climbing down into the pit to examine or work on the underside of the vehicle. If you walk along the vehicle pit in the direction of the corridor-side entrance door, you will come across the work area of ‘Mainfranken-Racing’, the student Formula Student group. If you look slightly upwards instead, you will see the gallery, where there is an office and a large meeting table. The gallery can be reached via a staircase located next to the entrance door on the corridor side.
 
To the right of the vehicle pit is a large clamping plate (very heavy metal plate with grooves). A car body is attached to it at four points. This test setup is used to investigate the static deformability of the car body. To the right of the car body are various demonstration objects: An automatic gearbox, part of a commercial vehicle axle with an openly visible brake, a commercial vehicle rigid axle, a driven car axle, part of a wheel and the right-hand half of a car that took part in a crash test.
 
If you turn 180 degrees from the original position, you can now walk along the vehicle pit to the door or gate on the inner courtyard side. The gate allows vehicles to enter and exit the laboratory.
To the right of this are further exhibits: in particular a car axle, a vehicle part structure made from special materials using special methods and a section of a commercial vehicle frame with connecting elements for the axle.
Behind it is a car on a currently lowered lifting platform.
If you turn further to the right, you can now see the dynamometer. A standard car is already mounted on it, so that a measurement could begin immediately.

The wheel alignment test bench is located between the dynamometer and the centre of the room. This contains the necessary computer-aided measurement technology on the one hand and the test object on the other: in this case, a body structure made of steel profiles, which guarantees easy access to the wheel suspension and its simple adjustability.
The General Mechanical Engineering Lab exercise for disassembling and assembling the gearbox take place on the adjacent table with a red substructure.