BrakeBetter – Brake Systems Experts
“Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure” – Aldous Huxley 1931. In this article, I want to explore speed, specifically the speed of road-going vehicles. If Aldous Huxley was right, then we may be living in very pleasurable times. The 21st Century has witnessed significant growth in what we can achieve […]
WHAT’S NEW IN BRAKING IN 2025? Having recently returned from the world’s foremost brake technology conference, it seems like the right time to take stock of some of the most significant technical trends in our industry. In this article, I will focus on new brake hardware trends, including some deep dives into novel new concepts
Braking Innovations 2025 Read More »
This St. Patricks’ Day, we will continue our series looking at some important Irish transport engineers throughout history. Previously we’ve examined the work of Henry Ferguson and James Drumm, but this year the focus will be on John Phillip Holland, one of the most influential figures in maritime innovation. Like all great historical romps, the story of John Holland
Holland’s Submarines Read More »
This St. Patrick’s Day, lets’ take a look back at a pioneering electric vehicle project, built around a breakthrough battery technology that allowed the nascent Irish government to open a whole new frontier of green transport. In preparing this entry, the support and contributions of The Irish Railways Records Society have been invaluable, and the
Drumm’s Electric Train Read More »
In this post, we will consider the emissions of a brake system. While we have previously discussed the topic of brake dust and it’s likely solutions (and indeed, how it remains a hot topic today), this post will introduce the idea of life cycle analysis for brake systems. We will look at how such analysis
Circularity of a brake Read More »
In mid June 2024, the annual EuroBrake conference was held in the German city of Mainz, with over 1100 delegates in attendance. As usual, the three days included a tightly packed technical program, and the conference venue hosted a large exhibition of braking technology from leading suppliers. In preparing the technical content, the programme development
EuroBrake 2024 Review Read More »
In this post, I want to examine the state of the art for braking the worlds’ most popular electric vehicles, 2 wheelers. I would like to compare the technical options for 2 and 4 (or more) wheelers, and review some of the lessons learned from 4 wheelers. Finally, we can speculate as to what comes
2 Wheel Regenerative Read More »
In September 2015, the automotive world learned a powerful new phrase. The phrase came to embody a damaging lack of transparency and trust in multinational OEMs as well as weakness in gatekeeping. In Europe, particularly, the scale of the problem was so widespread that it was clear a systemic reset was urgently needed. While OEMs
Inside the eye of the dust storm Read More »
In this article, I will revisit the topic of brake dust, in order to update the latest developments in this crucial area, review some timely legislative activity in this area relevant to braking and other vehicle technology areas. An informative point to start this journey is to look at the inquest into the death of
Brake Dust Developments Read More »
In this article, we will revisit the topic of brake dust, and look at some of the devices that are in the public domain that hope to solve the issue. We will see growing evidence of testing activities, as well as commercialising new concepts, and review the surge in new intellectual property in this area. You