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This paper studies the effects of various types of parking brake cable construction on parking brake system efficiency. Testing was conducted on a variety of common cable constructions from several industry sources. Cable construction variables include different types of conduit and wire strand. Input travel, input force, output travel, and output force were carefully measured under controlled conditions. Force, travel and hence work efficiencies were calculated and analyzed to identify any differences that might exist under the defined test conditions. Conclusions were drawn that might provide direction for improving parking brake system designs that have performance issues caused by poor cable efficiency.

Environmental concerns and government regulations are factors that have led to an increased focus on fuel economy in the automotive industry. This paper identifies a method used to improve the efficiency of a front-wheel-drive (FWD) automatic transmission. In order to create improvements in large complex systems, it is key to have a large scope, to include as much of the system as possible. The approach taken in this work was to use Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology. This was done to optimize as many of the front-wheel-drive transmission components as possible to increase robustness and efficiency. A focus of robustness, or consistency in torque transformation, is as important as the value of efficiency itself, because of the huge range of usage conditions. Therefore, it was necessary to find a solution of the best transmission component settings that would not depend on specific usage conditions such as temperatures, system pressures, or gear ratio.