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: akshat.sharma511@gmail.com
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 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-
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 two shoes,
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 cylinder and 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 for handbrakes, 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
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 and trap worn lining material within the assembly, both causes
brake assembly. The United States Federal Government began of various braking problems.
to regulate asbestos production, and brake manufacturers had to
There are different mechanisms used to drive the discs or drum
switch to non-asbestos linings. Owners initially complained of
brakes some of them are:-
poor braking with the replacements; however, technology
Air brakes:-
eventually advanced to compensate. A majority of daily-driven
older vehicles have been fitted with asbestos-free linings. Many Air brakes or more formally a compressed air brake system is a
other countries also limit the use of asbestos in brakes. type of friction brake for vehicles in which compressed
airpressing on a piston is used to apply the pressure to the brake
2).Disc-brakes:-
pad needed to stop the vehicle. Air brakes are used in large
The disc brake is a wheel brake which slows rotation of the
heavy vehicles, particularly those having multiple trailers
wheel by the friction caused by pushing brake pads against
which must be linked into the brake system, such
a brake disc with a set of calipers. The brake disc (or rotor in
as trucks, buses, trailers, andsemi-trailers in addition to their
American English) is usually made of cast iron, but may in
use in railroad trains. George Westinghouse first developed air
some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon–
brakes for use in railway service. He patented a safer air brake
carbon or ceramic matrix composites. This is connected to the
on March 5, 1872. Westinghouse made numerous alterations to
wheel and/or the axle. To stop the wheel, friction material in the
improve his air pressured brake invention, which led to various
form of brake pads, mounted on a device called a brake caliper,
forms of the automatic brake. In the early 20th century, after its
is forced mechanically, hydraulically,
advantages were proven in railway use, it was adopted by
pneumatically or electromagnetically against both sides of the
manufacturers of trucks and heavy road vehicles.
disc.
Electromagnetic brake:-
Friction causes the disc and attached wheel to slow or stop.
Electromagnetic brakes (also called electro-mechanical
Brakes convert motion to heat, and if the brakes get too hot,
brakes or EM brakes) slow or stop motion
they become less effective, a phenomenon known as brake fade.
using electromagnetic force to apply mechanical resistance
Disc-style brakes development and use began in England in the
(friction). Both electromagnetic brakes and eddy current
1890s. The first caliper-type automobile disc brake was
brakes use electromagnetic force but electromagnetic brakes
patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham,
ultimately depend on friction and eddy current brakes use
UK factory in 1902 and used successfully on Lanchester cars.
magnetic force directly. Recent design innovations have led to
Compared to drum brakes, disc brakes offer better stopping
the application of electromagnetic brakes to aircraft
performance, because the disc is more readily cooled. As a
applications. In this application, a combination motor/generator
consequence discs are less prone to the "brake fade"; and disc
is used first as a motor to spin the tires up to speed prior to
brakes recover more quickly from immersion (wet brakes are
touchdown, thus reducing wear on the tires, and then as a
less effective). Most drum brake designs have at least one
generator to provide regenerative braking.
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",
Vacuum brake:-
The vacuum brake is a braking system employed on trains and
introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum
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 , while regenerative
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
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
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
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]

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Philip R. Christensen,Article first published online: 19 DEC