HIGH-END CERAMIC BRAKES FOR THE FIAT UNO?

Cheaper Ceramic Coated Brake Rotors Could Help European Car Industry

A European collaborative group is trying to develop cheaper ceramic brake rotors that could one day be used in mass produced compact cars. The group is being led by Italy’s Politecnico di Torino and involves the Swiss-based Empa research institute Spanish brake manufacturer Fagor Ederlan, Liechtenstein soldering company Listemann AG and the Fiat research center CRF. Currently most mass produced cars use heat resistant cast iron for their brake rotors, which increases the overall weight of the car. Aluminum is a lot lighter metal, but is too soft to stand up to the rigours of braking. Ceramic coated aluminum brake rotors have been around for awhile, but due to their high cost are mostly restricted to sports and racing cars.

The collaborative group’s mission has been to develop a new type of rotor that can be manufactured quickly, will last a long as cast iron versions and is significantly cheaper. No easy task! Ceramics specialist Jakob Kübler and his team have developed a technique using aluminum oxide, a relatively cheap material, to coat aluminum rotors with a ceramic plate measuring 2 mm thick. As aluminum expands three to four times more than ceramics it was decided the ceramic compound would be soldered as individual tiles to take account of the difference in expansion. This presented its own problems as aluminum melts at roughly 700 degrees celsius, so the soldering must be done at lower temperatures. Listemann AG in Vaduz is developing special joining technology to ensure the tile soldering process is suitable for industry. The project should culminate in a working prototype that will then be tested for reliability etc, if it works the car industry in Europe could gain significantly from the resulting component.