Torsional rigidity is a vehicle body’s resistance to twisting forces.
In the world of physics, just about any word beginning with “tor” has something to do with twisting — such as torque, which refers to the twisting force exerted by an engine. Torsion itself simply means twisting, and in a vehicle it refers to the kind that would happen if Godzilla grabbed it, front and rear, and twisted either end in opposite directions. The forces a vehicle encounters when cruising and turning are not quite as great, but they are a significant issue. A vehicle with high torsional rigidity resists these forces better than one with low torsional rigidity.
A little flex in a vehicle’s structure doesn’t hurt, but overall you don’t want too much torsion in your vehicle’s body. Low rigidity in a vehicle results in vibrations and degrades handling performance. Good handling performance relies, in part, on suspension designs that optimize wheel/road contact under all conditions. Introduce too much torsion to a vehicle’s body and the wheels are no longer where they are supposed to be relative to each other. In these cases, even well-engineered suspensions don’t stand a chance.
Information for this was taken from the Cars.com glossary, written by Joe Wiesenfelder.
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