Vehicle Brake

A vehicle brake is used to slow down a vehicle by converting its kinetic energy into heat. The basic hydraulic system, most commonly used, usually has six main stages. The brake pedal, the brake boost (vacuum servo), the master cylinder, the apportioning valves and finally the brakes themselves.

A friction brake is a type of automotive brake that stores the heat in the rotating part (drum brake or disc brake) during the brake application and then releases it to the air gradually.

A drum brake (see below) is a brake in which the friction is caused by a set of shoes or pads that press against the inner surface of a rotating drum. The drum is connected to a rotating wheel.

The disc brake (see below) is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel. A brake disc (or rotor in U.S. English), usually made of cast iron or ceramic, is connected to the wheel or the axle. To stop the wheel, friction material in the form of brake pads (mounted in a device called a brake calliper) is forced mechanically, hydraulically, pneumatically or electromagnetically against both sides of the disc. Friction causes the disc and attached wheel to slow or stop.

Brake lights come on when the brake pedal is pressed in order to alert other drivers.

A drum brake is a brake in which the friction is caused by a set of shoes or pads that press against the inner surface of a rotating drum. The drum is connected to a rotating wheel.

History

The modern automobile drum brake was invented in 1902 by Louis Renault, though a less-sophisticated drum brake had been used by Maybach a year earlier. In the first drum brakes, the shoes were mechanically operated with levers and rods or cables. From the mid-1930s the shoes were operated with oil pressure in a small wheel cylinder and pistons (as in the picture), though some vehicles continued with purely-mechanical systems for decades. Some designs have two wheel cylinders.

The shoes in drum brakes are subject to wear and the brakes needed to be adjusted regularly until the 1950s introduction of self adjusting drum brakes. In the 1960s and 1970s brake drums on the front wheels of cars were gradually replaced with disc brakes and now practically all cars use disc brakes on the front wheels, with many offering disc brakes on all wheels. However, drum brakes are still often used for handbrakes as it has proved very difficult to design a disc brake suitable for holding a car when it is not in use. Moreover, it is very easy to fit a drum handbrake inside a disc brake so that one unit serves for both footbrake and handbrake.

Early type brake shoes contained asbestos. When working on brake systems of older cars, care must be taken not to inhale any dust present in the brake assembly. The Federal government began to regulate asbestos production, and there was a period of time where owners complained of poor braking with the non-asbestos linings. Eventually technology advanced to compensate. A majority of daily-driven older vehicles have been fitted with asbestos-free linings.

Brake drums are also occasionally used as an instrument in concert band and orchestra. Percussionists strike the brake drum with a hard mallet or drumstick to produce a clanging sound that is usually used as a special effect in the music.

Servo design

Drum brakes, depending on the way the shoes are hinged, can have a "self-servo" characteristic. This increases stopping power without any additional effort by the driver because the rotation of the drum drags the shoes around with it, increasing the force holding them together. In rear brakes (as illustrated above) only one shoe will have this characteristic. Front drum brakes may use two actuating cylinders which allow both shoes to utilize the servo characteristic and which also increase the front axle braking force, required to compensate for forward weight shift and also to avoid premature rear-wheel locking. Servo action can be used to make a very powerful brake (as on the rear axles of large commercial vehicles), but it does reduce the ability of the driver to modulate the brakes sensitively. (The disc brake has no self-servo effect because the pads act perpendicularly to the rotating disc.)

Advantages

Drum brakes are still used in modern cars. There can be engineering and cost advantages. Drum brakes allow simple incorporation of a parking brake. They are often applied to the rear wheels since most of the stopping happens in the front of the vehicle and therefore the heat generated in the rear is significantly less. Drum brakes are also occasionally fitted as the parking (and emergency) brake even when the rear wheels use disk brakes as the main brakes. In this situation, a small drum is usually fitted within or as part of the brake disk.

In hybrid vehicle applications, wear on braking systems is greatly reduced by energy recovering motor-generators (see regenerative braking). An example of a hybrid car using drum rear brakes is the Toyota Prius.

Disadvantages

Drum brakes with internal shoes have a particular disadvantage; when the drums are heated by hard braking, the diameter of the drum increases due to thermal expansion of the material, and the brakes must be further depressed to obtain effective braking action. Due to the design of drum brakes, the shoe (friction material) is in contact most of the way around the drum, reducing cooling effectiveness compared to disc brakes which have a much lower contact ratio. The higher contact ratio leads to an overheating or glazing of the brake lining adhesive (which in the 1960's and earlier were composed of asbestos and a binding adhesive). This effect is known as brake fade and can lead to driver panic and brake failure in extreme circumstances. Under normal driving conditions it is seldom noticed, especially when drums of appropriate size are fitted. The Pontiac GTO is one vehicle often cited as having undersized drums. Before disc brakes became common metal brake liners were used to combat this problem, but the high cost and poor performance under light braking cause most vehicle manufactures to continue using asbestos linings.

Before 1984, it was common to re-arc brake shoes to match the arc within brake drums. This practice, however, was controversial as it removed friction material from the brakes and caused a reduction in the life of the shoes as well as creating hazardous asbestos dust. Current design theory is to use shoes for the proper diameter drum, and to simply replace the brake drum when necessary, rather than perform the re-arcing procedure.

Adjustment

Early drum brakes (before about 1955) required periodic adjustment to compensate for drum and shoe wear. If not done sufficiently often the symptom would be long brake pedal travel ("low pedal"). Low pedal can be a severe hazard when combined with brake fade as the brakes can become ineffective when the pedal bottoms out.

Self adjusting brakes may use a mechanism that engages only when the vehicle is being stopped from reverse motion. This is a traditional method suitable for use where all wheels use drum brakes (most vehicles now use disc brakes on the front wheels). By operating only in reverse it is less likely that the brakes will be adjusted while hot (when the drums are expanded), which could cause dragging brakes that would accelerate wear and reduce mileage.

Self adjusting brakes may also operate by a ratchet mechanism engaged as the hand brake is applied, a means suitable for use where only rear drum brakes are used. If the travel of the parking brake actuator lever exceeds a certain amount, the ratchet turns an adjuster screw that moves the brake shoes toward the drum.

Percussive Uses

The brakedrum can be very effective in modern and film music to provide a non-pitched metal effect. Some drums have more resonance than others and the best method of producing the clearest sound is to hang the drum with nylon cord or to place it on foam. Either way, the brakedrum is struck with hammers of various weight.

See also

External links

The disc brake is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel. A brake disc (or rotor in U.S. English), usually made of cast iron or ceramic, is connected to the wheel or the axle. To stop the wheel, friction material in the form of brake pads (mounted in a device called a brake caliper) is forced mechanically, hydraulically, pneumatically or electromagnetically against both sides of the disc. Friction causes the disc and attached wheel to slow or stop.

History

Disc-style brakes began in England in the 1890s; the first ever automobile disc brakes were patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham factory in 1902, though it took another half century for his innovation to be widely adopted.

Modern-style disc brakes first appeared on the low-volume Crosley Hotshot in 1949, although they had to be discontinued in 1950 due to design problems.^[1] Chrysler's Imperial also offered a type of disc brake from 1949 through 1953, though in this instance they were enclosed with dual internal-expanding, full-circle pressure plates. Reliable modern disc brakes were developed in the UK by Dunlop and first appeared in 1953 on the Jaguar C-Type racing car. The Citroën DS of 1955, with powered inboard front disc brakes, and the 1956 Triumph TR3 were the first European production cars to feature modern disc brakes.^[2] The next American production cars to be fitted with disc brakes were the 1963 Studebaker Avanti^[3] (optional on other Studebaker models), standard equipment on the 1965 Rambler Marlin (optional on other AMC models), and the 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (C2).

These brakes offer better stopping performance than comparable drum brakes, including resistance to "brake fade" caused by the overheating of brake components, and are able to recover quickly from immersion (wet brakes are less effective). Unlike a drum brake, the disc brake has no self-servo effect and the braking force is always proportional to the pressure placed on the braking pedal or lever.

Many early implementations for automobiles located the brakes on the inboard side of the driveshaft, near the differential, but most brakes today are located inside the wheels. (An inboard location reduces the unsprung weight and eliminates a source of heat transfer to the tires, important in Formula One racing.)

Disc brakes were most popular on sports cars when they were first introduced, since these vehicles are more demanding about brake performance. Discs have now become the more common form in most passenger vehicles, although many (particularly light weight vehicles) use drum brakes on the rear wheels to keep costs and weight down as well as to simplify the provisions for a parking brake. As the front brakes perform most of the braking effort, this can be a reasonable compromise.

Discs

The design of the disc varies somewhat. Some are simply solid cast iron, but others are hollowed out with fins joining together the disc's two contact surfaces (usually included as part of a casting process). This "ventilated" disc design helps to dissipate the generated heat and is commonly used on the more-heavily-loaded front discs. Many higher performance brakes have holes drilled through them. This is known as cross-drilling and was originally done in the 1960s on racing cars. Brake pads will outgas and under use may create boundary layer of gas between the pad and the disc hurting braking performance. Cross-drilling was created to provide the gas someplace to escape. Although modern brake pads seldom suffer from outgassing problems, water residue may build up after a vehicle passes through a puddle and impede braking performance. For this reason, and for heat dissipation purposes, Cross Drilling is still used on some braking components, but is not favored for racing or other hard use as the holes are a source of stress cracks under severe conditions.

Discs may also be slotted, where shallow channels are machined into the disc to aid in removing dust and gas. Slotting is the preferred method in most racing environments to remove gas, water, and de-glaze brake pads. Some discs are both drilled and slotted. Slotted discs are generally not used on standard vehicles because they quickly wear down brake pads; however, this removal of material is beneficial to race vehicles since it keeps the pads soft and avoids vitrification of their surfaces.

On the road, drilled or slotted discs still have a positive effect in wet conditions because the holes or slots prevent a film of water building up between the disc and the pads. Cross drilled discs will eventually crack at the holes due to metal fatigue. Cross-drilled brakes that are manufactured poorly or subjected to high stresses will crack much sooner and more severely.

New technology now allows smaller brake systems to be fitted to bicycles, mopeds and now even mountain boards. The market for mountain bike disc brakes is very large and has huge variety, ranging from simple, mechanical (cable) systems, to highly expensive and also powerful, 6-pot hydraulic disc systems, commonly used on downhill racing bikes. Improved technology has seen the creation of the first vented discs for use on mountain bikes. The vented discs are similar to that seen on cars and have been introduced to help prevent heat fade on fast alpine descents

Disc brake discs are commonly manufactured out of a material called grey iron. The SAE maintains a specification for the manufacture of grey iron for various applications. For normal car and light truck applications, the SAE specification is J431 G3000 (superseded to G10). This specification dictates the correct range of hardness, chemical composition, tensile strength, and other properties that are necessary for the intended use.

Historically brake discs were manufactured throughout the world with a strong concentration in Europe, and America. During the period from 1989 to 2005, manufacturing of brake discs has migrated predominantly to China. Today, almost 90% of brake discs and brake drums are manufactured in China and exported globally.

Leading manufacturers in China include Laizhou Sanli, MAT (Midwest Air Technology), Winhere, Longji, and Haimeng.

Racing

In racing and very high performance road cars other disc materials have been employed. Reinforced carbon discs and pads inspired by aircraft braking systems were introduced in Formula One by the Brabham team in conjunction with Dunlop in 1976.^[4] Carbon-Carbon braking is now used in most top-level motorsport worldwide, reducing unsprung weight, giving better frictional performance and improved structural properties at high temperatures, compared to cast iron. Carbon brakes have occasionally been applied to road cars, by the French Venturi sports car manufacturer in the mid 1990s for example, but need to reach a very high operating temperature before becoming truly effective and so are not well suited to road use. Ceramic discs are used occasionally at the very highest end of the road car market, such as the Porsche 911 Turbo. A similar rationale to carbon is claimed for their use, although prestige probably also plays a large part.

In very recent years though, the usage of ceramic brakes on consumer vehicles has increased - mainly due to an increased number of heavy, high-performance passenger vehicles on the road.

The first development of the modern ceramic brake was made by British Engineers working in the railway industry for TGV applications in 1988. They were looking for light weight, half the number of brakes per axle, stable friction from very high speeds and all temperatures. They developed the basic carbon fibre re-inforced ceramic process which is now used in various forms for automotive, railway and aircraft brake applications.

Disc damage modes

Discs are usually damaged in one of three ways: warping, scarring, and cracking. Machining the discs to correct these problems also leads to reduced life. It is usually cheaper just to replace the disc instead of repairing the parts.

Warping

Warping is often caused by excessive heat, which softens the metal and allows it to be reshaped. The main causes of overheating are: undersized/overmachined brake discs, excessive braking (racing, descending hills/mountains), "riding" the brakes, or a "stuck" brake pad (pad touches disc at all times).

Another cause of warping is when the disc is overheated and the vehicle is stopped. When keeping the brakes applied, the area where the pads contact the disc will cause uneven cooling and lead to warping.

Incorrect fitting also leads to many cases of warping; the disc's retaining bolts (or the wheel/lug nuts, if the disc is simply sandwiched in place by the wheel, as on many cars) must be tightened progressively and evenly. The use of air tools to fasten lug nuts is extremely bad practice.

Several methods can be used to avoid overheating brake discs. Use of a lower gear when descending steep grades to obtain engine braking will reduce the brake loading. Also, operating the brakes intermittently - braking to slower speed for a brief time then coasting will allow the brake material to cool between applications. Riding the brakes lightly will generate a great amount of heat with little braking effect and should be avoided. High temperature conditions as found in automobile racing can be dealt with by proper pad selection, but at the tradeoff of everyday driveability. Pads that can take high heat usually do best when hot and will have reduced braking force when cold. Also, high heat pads typically have more aggressive compounds and will wear discs down more quickly. Brake ducting that forces air directly onto the brake discs, common in motorsports, is highly effective at preventing brake overheating. This is also useful for cars that are driven both in motorsports and on the street, as it has no negative effect on driveability. A further extension of this method is to install a system which mists the discs with water. Jaguar has reported great reductions in disc temperatures with such a system.

Warping can also be caused by improperly torquing the lug nuts when putting on a wheel. The manual will indicate the proper pattern for tightening as well as a torque rating for the bolts. The tightening pattern varies little between manufacturers and most mechanics are familiar with them. Lug nuts should never be tightened in a circle. Some vehicles are sensitive to the force the bolts apply and tightening should be done with a torque wrench.

Warping will often lead to a thickness variation of the disc. If it has runout, a thin spot will develop by the repetitive contact of the pad against the high spot as the disc turns. When the thin section of the disc passes under the pads, the pads move together and the brake pedal will drop slightly. When the thicker section of the disc passes between the pads, the pads will move apart and the brake pedal will raise slightly, this is pedal pulsation. The thickness variation can be felt by the driver when it is approximately 0.007 inch (0.017 cm) or greater.

Not all pedal pulsation is due to warped discs. Brake pad material operating outside of its designed temperature range can leave a thicker than normal deposit in one area of the disc surface, creating a "sticky" spot that will grab with every revolution of the disc. Grease or other foreign materials can create a slippery spot on the disc, also creating pulsation.

Cracking

Cracking is limited mostly to drilled discs, which get small cracks around outside edges of the drilled holes near the edge of the disc due to the disc's uneven rate of expansion in severe duty environments. In the main small hairline cracks will appear in all cross drilled discs, this is normal. Manufacturers that use drilled discs as OEM are doing so for two reasons: looks, if they determine that the average owner of the vehicle model will not overly stress them; or as a function of reducing the unsprung weight of the brake assembly, with the engineering assumed that enough brake disc mass remains to absorb racing temperatures and stresses. A brake disc is a heat sink, so removing mass increases the heat stress it will have to contend with. Generally an OEM application that is drilled will crack somewhat and could fail catastrophically if used over and above the original equipment design. Once cracked, these discs cannot be repaired.

Calipers

The brake caliper is the assembly which houses the brake pads and pistons. The pistons are usually made of aluminum or chrome-plated iron. There are two types of calipers: floating or fixed. A fixed caliper does not move relative to the disc. It uses one or more pairs of pistons to clamp from each side of the disc, and is more complex and expensive than a floating caliper. A floating caliper (also called a "sliding caliper") moves with respect to the disc, along a line parallel to the axis of rotation of the disc; a piston on one side of the disc pushes the inner brake pad until it makes contact with the braking surface, then pulls the caliper body with the outer brake pad so pressure is applied to both sides of the disc.

Floating caliper (single piston) designs are subject to failure due to sticking which can occur due to dirt or corrosion if the vehicle is not operated regularly. This can cause the pad attached to the caliper to rub on the disc when the brake is released. This can reduce fuel effiency and cause excessive wear on the affected pad. Additional heat generated by the constantly rubbing pad can lead to warping of the disc also.

Pistons and cylinders

The most common caliper design uses a single hydraulically actuated piston within a cylinder, although high performance brakes use as many as twelve. (Some pre-1969 Chrysler and General Motors vehicles and some pre-1968 Ford vehicles had four-piston calipers - usually sought after by restorers.) Modern cars use different hydraulic circuits to actuate the brakes on each set of wheels as a safety measure. The hydraulic design also helps multiply braking force. The number of pistons in a caliper is often referred to as the number of 'pots', so if a vehicle has 'six pot' calipers it means that each caliper houses six pistons.

Failure can occur due to failure of the piston to retract - this is usually a consequence of not operating the vehicle during a time that it is stored outdoors in adverse conditions. On high mileage vehicles the piston seals may leak, which must be promptly corrected.

Brake pads

The brake pads are designed for high friction with brake pad material embedded in the disc in the process of bedding while wearing evenly. Although it is commonly thought that the pad material contacts the metal of the disc to stop the car, the pads work with a very thin layer of their own material and generate a semi-liquid friction boundary that creates the actual braking force. Of course, depending on the properties of the material, disc wear rates may vary. The properties that determine material wear involve trade-offs between performance and longevity.

The brake pads must usually be replaced regularly (depending on pad material), and most are equipped with a method of alerting the driver when this needs to take place. Some have a thin piece of soft metal that causes the brakes to squeal when the pads are too thin, while others have a soft metal tab embedded in the pad material that closes an electric circuit and lights a warning light when the brake pad gets thin. More expensive cars may use an electronic sensor.

Although almost all road-going vehicles have only two brake pads per caliper, racing calipers utilize up to six pads, with varying frictional properties in a staggered pattern for optimum performance.

Early brake pads (and shoes) contained asbestos. When working on an older car's brakes, care must be taken not to inhale any dust present on the caliper (or drum).

Brake squeal

Sometimes a loud noise or high pitch squeal occurs when the brakes are applied. Most brake squeal is produced by vibration (resonance instability) of the brake components, especially the pads and discs (known as “force-coupled excitation”.) This type of squeal should not negatively affect brake stopping performance. Simple techniques like adding chamfers to linings, greasing or gluing the contact between caliper and the pads (finger to backplate, piston to backplate), bonding insulators (damping material) to pad backplate, inclusion of a brake shim between the brake pad and back plate etc, may help to reduce squeal. Cold weather combined with high early morning humidity (dew) often makes brake-squeal worse, although the squeal stops when the lining reaches regular operating temperatures. However, some lining wear indicators are also designed to squeal when the lining is due for replacement. Overall brake squeal can be annoying to the vehicle passengers, passerby, pedestrians, etc especially as vehicles are designed to be more comfortable and quieter. Hence vehicle NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) is one of the important priorities for today's vehicle manufacturers.

An age-old trick is to put a small amount of copper slip (copper grease) onto the back of the pads where they contact the brake caliper piston and on the pad shims, if present. While this will normally stop the squeal, getting grease on the pads or disks will affect braking performance.

Dust on the brakes may also cause squeal; there are many commercial brake cleaning products that can be used to remove dust and contaminants from the brakes.

Some mid-performance brake pads, such as PFC pads (which have many debond issues), will always squeal during operation, and this does not indicate a problem.

Apart from noise generated from squeal, brakes may also develop a phenomenon called brake judder or shudder.

Brake judder

Brake judder is usually perceived by the driver as minor to severe vibrations transferred through the chassis during braking.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]

The judder phenomenon can be classified into two distinct subgroups; they are Hot (Thermal) or Cold Judder.

Hot judder is usually produced as a result of longer more moderate braking from high speed where the vehicle does not come to a complete stop.^[14] It commonly occurs when a motorist decelerates from speeds of around 120 km/h to about 60 km/h, which results in severe vibrations being transmitted to the driver. These vibrations are the result of uneven thermal distributions believed to be the result of phenomena called Hot Spots. Hot Spots are classified as concentrated thermal regions that alternate between both sides of a disc that distort it in such a way that produces a sinusoidal waviness around its edges. Once the brake pads (friction material / brake lining) comes in contact with the sinusoidal surface during braking severe vibrations are induced as a result and can produce hazardous conditions for the person driving the vehicle.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]

Cold judder on the other hand is the result of uneven disc wear patterns or DTV. These variations in the disc surface are usually the result of extensive vehicle road usage. DTV is usually attributed to the following causes: waviness of rotor surface, misalignment of axis (Runout), elastic deflection, thermal distortion, wear and friction material transfers.^[7]^[18]^[19]

Brake Dust

When braking force is applied, small amounts of material are gradually ground off the brake pads. This material is known as "brake dust" and a fair amount of it usually deposits itself on the braking system and the surrounding wheel. Brake dust can badly damage the finish of most wheels if not washed off. Different brake pad formulations create different amounts of dust, and some formulations are much more damaging than others. This applies to the use of metallic brake pads. Ceramic brake pads contain significantly fewer metal particles in them, and therefore produce less corrosion of surrounding metal parts.

Contents

History

Servo design

Advantages

Disadvantages

Adjustment

Percussive Uses

See also

External links

Contents

History

Discs

Racing

Disc damage modes

Warping

Cracking

Calipers

Pistons and cylinders

Brake pads

Brake squeal

Brake judder

Brake Dust

See also

Notes and references

External links