Search Results

New technologies, such as electrified powertrain and autonomous driving solutions, are transforming the automotive industry in such a way that achieving vehicle level performance requirements demands an increasingly intensive and detailed system integration exercise. Validation of the braking system, critical to any vehicle level project, must evolve so that the ever-increasing requirements cascade is answered in a way that ensures the highest level of safety and performance as the industry moves toward a new frontier of features. To support this evolution of integration methodology, critical-to-performance components, such as brake pads, must undergo a transformation in how performance metrics are characterized, communicated, and documented.

The Simulated Los Angeles City Traffic (SLACT) test is a well-established dynamometer test procedure used to evaluate brake noise and lining wear performance under a typical US city driving conditions. This procedure is based on a vehicle test conducted on the roads of Los Angeles, California. Unlike ICE vehicles, in electric vehicles regenerative brakes do a significant amount of the work to stop the vehicle, resulting in less work required from the foundation brakes. This means that the life of a brake pad could significantly increase in electric vehicles. It is possible then to reduce the thickness of the brake pad to improve packaging and cost. However, in situations where regenerative braking is disabled due to a failure or low battery charge level, all the work must be done by the foundation brake with no support from the regenerative braking. Hence, it is crucial to select the optimal brake pad thickness for such scenarios.

The automotive industry continues to focus heavily on new electrified mobility strategies. Whether this electrified mobility consists of battery electric vehicles or electrified brake boost systems, there is a level of system sensitivity which presents new challenges throughout the industry during development of a new product. Most specifically in brake system development, much of the critical performance targets that have come along with electrification are cascaded down to the vehicle corner and its component performance. These corner level requirements have transformed to be more stringent in order to improve the overall system efficiency. It is important that the factors which lead to less than desirable performance are identified and understood. Some of the factors that influence the brake system corner performance are driven by multiple components, and this paper will go into identifying & explaining the following.