Braking Systems- Past Present & Future

7/27/2019 Braking Systems- Past Present & Future

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Abstract:- Humans have always been fascinated by the

idea of going faster than before . With advancements in the

IC engine technologies and then Jet Propulsion Engine the

highest speed that vehicles can reach has multiplied

manifold. However as the speeds of vehicles go up the

technology required to safely stop these vehicles must

evolve. Braking systems have had tremendous

transformations from lever type brakes on horse carriages

to multi layered carbon ceramic disc type brakes to air

brakes used on land speed record braking cars. While the

technology used to power vehicles to higher than ever

speeds is what catches popular imagination the same has

not been the case with evolution of braking systems.

This paper aims to sketch a history of braking systems

over the years and make a study of the present and future

of the same

Keywords:- Braking systems, history of braking systems

I. INTRODUCTION

As vehicles have developed over the years the technology

required to stop these vehicles has also undergone a massive

evolution. The first type of brakes were external type brakes

used on horse carriages which were actuated by means of a

lever which brought a rubber pads in contact to axle . These

were followed by internal brakes using drums or disks

attached to each wheel. This paper sketches a history of these

braking systems. It also discusses about the present trends and

future prospects in the world of brakes.

II. HISTORY OF BRAKING SYSTEMS

A major test of brake systems took place in 1902 on an

unpaved road in New York City called Riverside Drive.

Ransom E. Olds had arranged to test a new brake system

against the tire brake of a four-horse coach and the internal

drum brake of a Victoria horseless carriage. His

Oldsmobile sported a single flexible stainless-steel band,

wrapped around a drum on the rear axle. When the brake

pedal was applied, the band contracted to grip the drum. A

vast improvement on brakes was born, one that would pave

the way for the systems afterwards. The repercussions of

which spread to every facet of the industry, even something

like being able to compare car insurance without the

advancements in brakes that have taken place. Olds had

entered his car in the Blue Ribbon Contest, a 100-mile race

scheduled for August and wanted to be sure his external brake

was a match for the Victoria's expanding-shoe internal drum

design and the coach's tire brake -- a pad that was applied to

the tire by a long lever.

Although it ground down solid rubber tires pretty quickly, the

tire brake was popular on carriages and many early autos.

From a thunderous speed of 14 mph, the Oldsmobile stopped

in 21.5 ft., the Victoria in 37 ft. and the horses (which may not

have been going 14 mph, but had no engine braking to aid

them) in 77.5 ft. The Oldsmobile went on to win two of nine

blue ribbons awarded in the race. The car's braking system

made such a big impression on other manufacturers that by

1903 most had adopted it. By 1904, practically all car makers

were building cars with an external brake on each rear wheel.

Almost at once, the external brake demonstrated some serious

flaws in everyday use. On hills, for example, the brake

unwrapped and gave way after several seconds. A driver

unlucky enough to stall on a grade soon found himself rolling

Braking Systems : Past, Present & Future

Akshat Sharma*,Amit Kumar Marwah**

*Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT Ujjain(M.P.)

**Associate professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Ujjain (M.P.)

Email: [email protected]
http://militaryfinance.umuc.edu/insurance/insurance_auto_how_much.htmlhttp://militaryfinance.umuc.edu/insurance/insurance_auto_how_much.html


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backward. For this reason, chocks were an important piece of

on-board equipment. It was a common sight to see a passenger

scurrying from inside the car with wood in his hands to block

the wheels. There was another drawback to the external brake.

It had no protection from dirt so its bands and drums quickly

wore. A brake job every 200 to 300 miles was considered

normal.

The problems associated with the external brake were

overcome by the internal brake. As long as the brake shoes

were under pressure, they stayed against the drums to keep the

car from rolling backward on hills. And, since brake parts

were inside drums and protected from dirt, drivers could go

over 1,000 miles between brake overhauls. The drum brake, as

it is now known, became all-dominant in the United States. In

Europe, particularly in Great Britain, it had to share the stage

with disc brakes. Disc brakes became more or less standard on

European cars during the '50s, about 20 years before they were

adopted by American manufacturers in 1973. This is ironic,

because the spot-type disc brake is an American invention. In

1898, Elmer Ambrose Sperry of Cleveland designed an

electric car having front-wheel disc brakes.

Fig. 1. An Oldsmobile horse carriage using lever type

external brakes[1]

He made a large disc integral with the hub on each wheel.

Electromagnets were used to press smaller discs, lined with a

friction material, against spots on the rotating disc to bring the

wheel to a stop. Springs retracted the spot discs when current

was interrupted. Meanwhile in Great Britain, a patent was

issued in 1902 to F. W. Lanchester for a nonelectric spot disc

braking system that's similar in principle to what we have

today. The biggest problem that Lanchester encountered was

noise. Metal-to-metal contact between his copper linings and

the metal disc caused an intense screech that sent chills

through anyone within earshot. The problem was solved in

1907 when Herbert Frood, another Englishman, came up with

the idea of lining pads with asbestos. The new material was

quickly adopted by car manufacturers on both drum and disc

brakes. Asbestos linings also outlasted other friction materials

by a wide margin. The 10,000-mile brake job had arrived. As

roads improved and cars began to be driven at high speeds,

manufacturers recognized the need for even greater braking

power.

One solution to the problem became apparent during the Elgin

road Race of 1915. A Duesenberg took the flats at 80 mph,

then screeched to a virtual crawl to negotiate the hairpin

curves. Duesenberg's secret for such magnificent braking

power was to simply use an internal brake on each front wheel

as well as each rear wheel. In 1918, a young inventor named

Malcolm Lougheed (who later changed the spelling of his

name to Lockheed) applied hydraulics to braking. He used

cylinders and tubes to transmit fluid pressure against brake

shoes, pushing the shoes against the drums. In 1921, the first

passenger car to be equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes

appeared -- the Model A Duesenberg. Carmakers as a group

were not quick to adopt hydraulics. Ten years after the Model

A Duesie, in 1931, only Chrysler, Dodge, Desoto, Plymouth,

Auburn, Franklin, Reo, and Graham had hydraulic brakes. All

the others still had cable-operated mechanical brakes. In fact,

it was not until 1939 that Ford finally gave in, becoming the

last major manufacturer to switch to hydraulic brakes.

The basic braking system we have today was pretty much in

place by 1921, including a refinement some regard as

contemporary -- power assist. Power assist, technically, dates

back to 1903 when a car called the Tincher used air brakes.

But the first car to be equipped with a vacuum-operated power

booster similar to those we have today was the 1928 Pierce-


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Arrow. It used vacuum from the inlet manifold to reduce the

physical effort needed to apply brakes. Vacuum boosters from

then to now have similar designs. The first widespread

deviation from vacuum power assist came about in 1985.

Some '85 GM cars use an electrically driven brake booster,

which is smaller and lighter than the conventional vacuum

booster, giving an all-hydraulic system. Some cars with

antilock brakes also use all-hydraulic systems.

The first car to have self-adjusting brakes was the 1925 Cole.

The prototype for today's systems appeared on the 1946

Studebaker. The mechanism by Wagner Electric Co.,

consisted of an adjusting wedge under the influence of a

tension spring. As linings wore, a plug receded to move a pin

and lever against the spring. This forced the adjusting wedge

against brake shoes, which expanded to keep linings at a

preset distance from the drums. As for the antilock (antiskid)

units now available in the U.S., they are hardly new. The first

practical antiskid braking system, named Maxaret, was

developed in 1958 by the Road Research Laboratories in Great

Britain and was first applied to the Jensen FF sports sedan in

1966. Three years later, in 1969, the Lincoln Continental Mark

III was equipped with an Auto-Linear antilock unit developed

by Kelsey-Hayes. Sensors on the rear wheels transmitted

signals to a transistorized "computer" behind the glove box.

The computer controlled a vacuum-operated valve on the rear

brake line to modulate pressure to the rear brakes when the

sensors told the computer that the brakes were locking. Cost

and some technical problems caused the shelving of this unit.

But now, updated versions that give four-wheel skid control

are offered on almost every car model, although initially they

were available only on high-end cars like Lincoln and

Mercedes, and a few European cars.

III. PRESENT TRENDS

Talking about the present trends in braking systems there are

two types of them that are predominantly being used on all

vehicles, be it two, three or four wheeler vehicles. Disc brakes

and drum brakes . While drum brakes are the cheaper of the

two , they tend to wear more and have a high cost of

maintenance . thus they have a lower economic as well as

overall efficiency. Disc brakes on the other hand have become

synonyms for exceptional braking power , vehicles with disc

brakes are considered high end since they are costlier and are

much more effective than drum brakes the mechanism used

for driving the disc or drum brakes is what mainly

differentiates the vehicles today. Let us first discuss the drum

and disc brakes in detail first :-

1). Drum Brakes:-

A drum brake is a brake that uses friction caused by a set

of shoes or pads that press against a rotating drum-shaped part

called a brake drum. The term drum brake usually means a

brake in which shoes press on the inner surface of the drum.

When shoes press on the outside of the drum, it is usually

called a clasp brake. Where the drum is pinched between twoshoes, similar to a conventional disc brake, it is sometimes

called a pinch drum brake, though such brakes are relatively

rare. A related type called a band brake uses a flexible belt or

"band" wrapping around the outside of a drum.

The modern automobile drum brake was invented in 1902 by

Louis Renault. He used woven asbestos lining for the drum

brakes lining, as no alternative dissipated heat like the

asbestos lining, though Maybach has used a less

sophisticated drum brake. In the first drum brakes, levers and

rods or cables operated the shoes mechanically. From the mid-

1930s, oil pressure in a small wheel cylinderand pistons (as in

the picture) operated the brakes, though some vehicles

continued with purely mechanical systems for decades. Some

designs have two wheel cylinders. The shoes in drum brakes

wear thinner, and brakes required regular adjustment until the

introduction of self-adjusting drum brakes in the 1950s. In the

1960s and 1970s, disk brakes gradually replaced drum brakes

on the front wheels of cars. Now practically all cars use disc

brakes on the front wheels, and many use disc brakes on all

wheels.

However, drum brakes are still often used forhandbrakes, as it

has proven very difficult to design a disc brake suitable for

holding a parked car. Moreover, it is very easy to fit a drum
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handbrake inside a disc brake so that one unit serves as both

service brake and handbrake. Early 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 United States Federal Government began

to regulate asbestos production, and brake manufacturers had

to switch to non-asbestos linings. Owners initially complained

of poor braking with the replacements; however, technology

eventually advanced to compensate. A majority of daily-

driven older vehicles have been fitted with asbestos-free

linings. Many other countries also limit the use of asbestos in

brakes.

2).Disc-brakes:-

The disc brake is a wheel brake which slows rotation of the

wheel by the friction caused by pushing brake pads against

a brake disc with a set of calipers. The brake disc (or rotor in

American English) is usually made of cast iron, but may in

some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon

carbon or ceramic matrix composites. This is connected to the

wheel and/or the axle. To stop the wheel, friction material in

the form of brake pads, mounted on 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.

Brakes convert motion to heat, and if the brakes get too hot,they become less effective, a phenomenon known as brake

fade. Disc-style brakes development and use began in England

in the 1890s. The first caliper-type automobile disc brake was

patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham,

UK factory in 1902 and used successfully on Lanchester cars.

Compared to drum brakes, disc brakes offer better stopping

performance, because the disc is more readily cooled. As a

consequence discs are less prone to the "brake fade"; and disc

brakes recover more quickly from immersion (wet brakes are

less effective). Most drum brake designs have at least one

leading shoe, which gives a servo-effect.

By contrast, a disc brake has no self-servo effect and its

braking force is always proportional to the pressure placed on

the brake pad by the braking system via any brake servo,

braking pedal or lever, this tends to give the driver better

"feel" to avoid impending lockup. Drums are also prone to

"bell mouthing", and trap worn lining material within the

assembly, both causes of various braking problems.

There are different mechanisms used to drive the discs or

drum brakes some of them are:-

Air brakes:-Air brakes or more formally a compressed air brake system is

a type of friction brake for vehicles in which compressed

airpressing on a piston is used to apply the pressure to

the brake pad needed to stop the vehicle. Air brakes are used

in large heavy vehicles, particularly those having multiple

trailers which must be linked into the brake system, such

as trucks, buses, trailers, andsemi-trailers in addition to their

use in railroad trains. George Westinghouse first developed air

brakes for use in railway service. He patented a safer air brakeon March 5, 1872. Westinghouse made numerous alterations

to improve his air pressured brake invention, which led to

various forms of the automatic brake. In the early 20th

century, after its advantages were proven in railway use, it was

adopted by manufacturers of trucks and heavy road vehicles.

Electromagnetic brake:-

Electromagnetic brakes (also called electro-mechanical

brakes or EM brakes) slow or stop motion

using electromagnetic force to apply mechanical resistance

(friction). Both electromagnetic brakes and eddy current

brakes use electromagnetic force but electromagnetic brakes

ultimately depend on friction and eddy current brakes use

magnetic force directly.Recent design innovations have led to

the application of electromagnetic brakes to aircraft

applications. In this application, a combination

motor/generator is used first as a motor to spin the tires up to

speed prior to touchdown, thus reducing wear on the tires, and

then as a generator to provide regenerative braking.

Vacuum brake:-

The vacuum brake is a braking system employed on trains and

introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum
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brake system, became almost universal in British train

equipment and in countries influenced by British practice.

Vacuum brakes also enjoyed a brief period of adoption in

the USA, primarily on narrow gauge railroads. Its limitations

caused it to be progressively superseded by compressed

air systems starting in the United Kingdom from the 1970s

onward. The vacuum brake system is now obsolete; it is not in

large-scale usage anywhere in the world, other than in South

Africa, largely supplanted by air brakes.

IV. FUTURE PROSPECTS

The future of braking systems focuses on making the process

of braking more energy efficient . here we discuss three

methods , Aerodynamic braking , regenerative braking and

brake-by-wire. While aerodynamic braking is aircraft

technology which is now being used in some supercars , whileregenerative braking is the method of recovering the heat that

is lost from brake pads. Brake-by-wire is the technology that

aims to replace direct use of pneumatic , mechanical, or

hydraulic systems by electronics, it is a part of a larger drive

by wire technology revolution. Let us discuss them in detail.:-

Aerodynamic Braking:-

Aerodynamic braking is a spaceflight maneuver that reduces

the high point of an elliptical orbit (apoapsis) by flying the

vehicle through theatmosphere at the low point of

the orbit (periapsis). The resulting drag slows the spacecraft.

Aerodynamic braking is used when a spacecraft requires a

low orbit after arriving at a body with an atmosphere, and it

requires less fuel than does the direct use of a rocket engine.

A derivative method from this technology is used in some

high performance cars along with the conventional disc

brakes used. In The Bugatti Veyron , designed and developed

by the Volkswagen Group and manufactured in Molsheim,

France by Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. ,at speeds above

200 km/h (120 mph), the rear wing also acts as an airbrake,

snapping to a 55 angle in 0.4 seconds once brakes are

applied, providing an additional 0.68 g (6.66 m/s2) of

deceleration[11]

Regenerative braking:-

A regenerative brake is an energy recovery mechanism which

slows a vehicle or object down by converting its kinetic

energy into another form, which can be either used

immediately or stored until needed. This contrasts with

conventional braking systems, where the excess kinetic energy

is converted to heat by friction in the brake linings and

therefore wasted. The most common form of regenerative

brake involves using an electric motor as an electric generator.

In electric railways the generated electricity is fed back into

the supply system, whereas inbattery electric and hybrid

electric vehicles, the energy is stored chemically in a battery,

electrically in a bank of capacitors, or mechanically in a

rotating flywheel. Hydraulic hybrid vehicles use hydraulic

motors and store energy in form of compressed air.

Brake-by-wire:-

Brake-by-wire technology in automotive industry represents

the replacement of traditional components such as the pumps,

hoses, fluids, belts and vacuum servos and master cylinders

with electronic sensors and actuators. Drive-by-

wire technology in automotive industry replaces the traditional

mechanical and hydraulic control systems with electronic

control systems usingelectromechanical actuators and human-

machine interfaces such as pedal and steering feel emulators.

Some x-by-wire technologies have been already installed on

commercial vehicles such as steer-by-wire, and throttle-by-

wire. Brake-by-wire technology is still under development by

some automobile and automotive parts manufacturers industry

worldwide and has not been widely commercialized yet. This

is mainly due to the safety-critical nature of brake products. So


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far, Mercedes-Benz (Sensotronic) and Toyota (Electronically

Controlled Brake) already use almost fully brake-by-wire

systems, on the Mercedes-Benz E-class and SL models and on

Toyota's Estima.[3]

REFERENCES

[1] www.wikipedia.com/brakes visited at February 1, 2013

[2] M Fisher, K Ramdas, K Ulrich - Management Science,

1999.

[3] JR Layne, KM Passini - Control Systems 1993

[4] CM Lin, CF Hsu - Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions

on, 2003.

[5] CM Lin, CF Hsu -Systems Technology, IEEE

Transactions on, 2003

[6] E Ono, Y Hattori, Y Muragishi - vehicle system

dynamics, 2006 - Taylor & Francis

[7] WD Jonner, H Winner, L Dreilich, E Schunck - SAE

paper,,1996

[8] R Schwarz, R Isermann, J Bohm, J Nell - SAE

Technical,1999

[9] W van Winsum, A Heino - Ergonomics, 1996

[10] Y Gao, L Chen, M Ehsani - SAE paper, 1999

[11] DT Lyons - Spaceflight mechanics 1994

[12]

Michael D. SmithJohn C. Pearl Barney J. Conrath

Philip R. Christensen,Article first published online: 19 DEC
http://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=boZIGjQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=srahttp://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=fA5ljLkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=srahttp://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=fA5ljLkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=srahttp://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=boZIGjQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra

Braking Systems- Past Present & Future

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