Hydraulic brakes

A hydraulic brake is an arrangement of braking mechanism which uses brake fluid, typically containing glycol ethers or diethylene glycol, to transfer pressure from the controlling mechanism to the braking mechanism.

Fred Duesenberg originated hydraulic brakes on his 1914 racing cars and Duesenberg was the first automotive marque to use the technology on a passenger car in 1921. This braking system could have earned him a fortune if he had patented it. In 1917 Malcolm Loughead (who later changed the spelling of his name to Lockheed) developed a hydraulic brake system. "Lockheed" is a common term for brake fluid in France.

The technology was carried forward in automotive use and eventually led to the introduction of the self-energizing hydraulic drum brake system (Edward Bishop Boughton, London England, June 28, 1927) which is still in use today.

The most common arrangement of hydraulic brakes for passenger vehicles, motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds, consists of the following:

The system is usually filled with a glycol-ether based brake fluid (other fluids may also be used).

At one time, passenger vehicles commonly employed drum brakes on all four wheels. Later, disc brakes were used for the front and drum brakes for the rear. However disc brakes have shown better heat dissipation and greater resistance to 'fading' and are therefore generally safer than drum brakes. So four-wheel disc brakes have become increasingly popular, replacing drums on all but the most basic vehicles. Many two-wheel vehicle designs, however, continue to employ a drum brake for the rear wheel.

The following description uses the terminology for / and configuration of a simple disc brake.

In a hydraulic brake system, when the brake pedal is pressed, a pushrod exerts force on the piston(s) in the master cylinder, causing fluid from the brake fluid reservoir to flow into a pressure chamber through a compensating port. This results in an increase in the pressure of the entire hydraulic system, forcing fluid through the hydraulic lines toward one or more calipers where it acts upon one or more caliper pistons sealed by one or more seated O-rings (which prevent leakage of the fluid).

The brake caliper pistons then apply force to the brake pads, pushing them against the spinning rotor, and the friction between the pads and the rotor causes a braking torque to be generated, slowing the vehicle. Heat generated by this friction is either dissipated through vents and channels in the rotor or is conducted through the pads, which are made of specialized heat-tolerant materials such as kevlar or sintered glass.

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