It’d be very cliché to start this article with the saying “Every cloud has a silver lining”. So we’ll try to begin this with a different saying “different strokes for different folks”, only the difference is the strokes here are types of brakes and the folks are the different kinds of riders. As the title, in this article, we are going to talk about why carbon brakes are not particularly useful in everyday life.How Carbon Disc Brakes Came Into Existence:
The only thing that comes to mind when we hear the word carbon fibers are body panels in a car or a bike, something which is lightweight and very strong. For years the racing industries have used carbon-carbon brakes and have achieved superb performance. The weight of the material becomes a really big factor in choosing it as a go to material for increased performance along with its high tensile strength and excellent heat tolerance.
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The aviation industry was the first one to use carbon on carbon brakes, particularly for the military and later for commercial air crafts. The presence of carbon brakes resulted in a substantial reduction in rolling weight, which gave better fuel economy. The high heat tolerance coupled with their unbeatable service life justified the carbon brakes in this case. Later, carbon-carbon brakes would make its way into the racing starting from early 90’s in Moto GP. People naturally thought that these brakes can bring a 300-ton plane to a halt then it can surely stop a motorcycle very effectively.
So that’s why today we have fairly sophisticated carbon disc brakes, which can easily be found in several, track only motorcycles. As even after all this time these brakes haven’t made their way onto our everyday naked or sports bike. So let’s see why.
Disadvantages Of Carbon Disc Brakes:
• They are super costly, a full braking setup of carbon brakes with 4 brake pads can set you back a couple of grand easily (in dollars) that coupled with the fact that they won’t last very long is the reason they haven’t made their way outside the track. Though the carbon in its raw material form is very cheap it’s the continuous processing which increases the cost so much.
• The life of the carbon brakes depends upon the brakes’ application unlike steel, whose life depends on the amount of kinetic energy they absorb, the weight of the bike and the degree of braking application.
• The wear on the carbon disc brakes will be more with a number of short small brakes’ application rather than one big application, and in the real world’s stop and go traffic they will be a disaster.
• The ability of the carbon brakes to tolerate a huge amount of heat isn’t actually used on normal roads as the temperature at which the normal disc brakes start glowing faint red/orange at 480 degrees Celsius. When it turns bright orange, it is at the temperature of 932.22 degree Celsius.
Everyday vehicles hardly go so fast such that their brakes reach a temperature of 400 degree Celsius and for carbon rotors this is the normal operating temperature at which they give peak performance, they get stronger as they are heated which may sound really awesome on paper but in reality achieving this kind of heat in the brakes continuously is not possible. I said continuously because of its one-quarter the density of steel which means it cools much quicker than steel.
Conclusion:• The life of the carbon brakes depends upon the brakes’ application unlike steel, whose life depends on the amount of kinetic energy they absorb, the weight of the bike and the degree of braking application.
• The wear on the carbon disc brakes will be more with a number of short small brakes’ application rather than one big application, and in the real world’s stop and go traffic they will be a disaster.
• The ability of the carbon brakes to tolerate a huge amount of heat isn’t actually used on normal roads as the temperature at which the normal disc brakes start glowing faint red/orange at 480 degrees Celsius. When it turns bright orange, it is at the temperature of 932.22 degree Celsius.
Everyday vehicles hardly go so fast such that their brakes reach a temperature of 400 degree Celsius and for carbon rotors this is the normal operating temperature at which they give peak performance, they get stronger as they are heated which may sound really awesome on paper but in reality achieving this kind of heat in the brakes continuously is not possible. I said continuously because of its one-quarter the density of steel which means it cools much quicker than steel.
Carbon has its own charms there is no denying that but in the mass production market of today's motorcycle industry, people want the best bang for their buck. In a country like India we still expect from bikes like Dominar 400 and RC 390 to give us a good fuel economy, I am not saying that it’s a bad thing, in fact if it were not for the Indian audiences’ demand of better mileage with superb performance then countries like Columbia and Malaysia would never even get to see brands like Pulsar or the Apache.
But the carbon disc brakes are on the far side of the spectrum where they very often change their rotors while we hardly change brake pads. Still, we Indian will find a way around this too as we have made bikes which can go 170 km/hr even though their cost is below Rs.1.5 lakh and that’s no easy feat.
By: Yetnesh Dubey