Anybody made electro-magnet brakes yet?

When your electrical system fails, so do your brakes?

In theory, they work, but think how much electricity it would require. That amperage either needs to come from another huge battery, or your alternator, which would be a huge load. Those brakes work on high speed trains, but creating enough electricity is no problem for them.

Not that I know of....but would you have the 2 magnets forcing togethor? Tht may make some noise....and would wear out.

Now if you had a series of magnets in the caliper that could change their polirity very quickly to not only help accelerate the car when you push the gas, but would work in the reverse order to slow the car down. Good idea....I think it could be done. But im sure it would take some room...and wow would that stuff be heavy. Not to mention a nice processor to control the rapid switching.

They are used on some BULLET trains..

imagine all the crap your magnetic brakes would pick up from the road.

DBMSTNG said:

imagine all the crap your magnetic brakes would pick up from the road.

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damn it honey, what did i tell you about driving too close to those scrap yards!

sounds good on paper, but i think there are too many bugs to be worked out, as many have brought up. Toyota really has the right idea with their Hybrid cars. the brakes on those things really are amazing (as far as the design, not so much performance), and only need some further modification to be the next standard in braking. how they work is the hybrid uses the electric motor to actually slow the inertia of the vehicle. its like those toy RC cars we had as kids. when you take your finger off the accelerator, the car stops instantly. same idea, using the electric motor to slow down. im not sure exactly how it works b/c im not Hybrid certified yet, but it is a very cutting edge design. there are rumors that Toyota wants to use this same system in their new Supra. they even hint at a possible hybrid sports car in the future. very exciting

All this talk about brakes has got me thinking.....do you think they could make a braking system that would hook your wheels up to a winding spring when you hit the brakes? So while you're braking, it would wind the spring...then, when you release it, that stored energy would go into accelerating you back up to speed? In theory, if you have however much energy going 60 mph, and you put all that energy into a spring, for stopping, it would be enough energy to accelerate you right back up to 60 mph again. Sounds like it'd be an efficient way to save some gas for something like stopping for a light from highway speeds. Any thoughts?

Wouldnt the spring make you go backwards onced released?

Yes, i suppose it would take a simple transmission to switch directions when you're done braking

the electric braking sytems being talked about are electric motors. They already are used in electric cars, called regenerative braking. Not sure I would pay to have an electric motor installed at each wheel simply for braking. What do you do with the electrical energy created if you aren't storing it for motivational force? It might be cool to have two rods sticking out the rear with huge sparks jumping across them every time you slow down lol.

It seems to me that since the effectiveness of any braking system is dependent on the tires, and locking up the brakes has never been the problem. Rather, effective modulation of the brakes and heat storage and shedding has already been the downfall of drum brakes. Better antilock braking systems and better brake pads and disk materials/design is probably where development is mainly directed.

It's kind of like the electronic shock systems from Bose - it isn't that it can't be done, per se, but that it isn't superior in any way with current technology, and there is no guarantee that it will ever be superior. For cars that run exclusively on battery power, regenerative braking is great, but it isn't inherently different than engine braking with an internal combustion engine, which any car with a stick can do.

What might be more effective is electromagnetic replacement of the current hydraulic activation of brakes. If you replace the hydraulic fluid and cylinders with magnetic clamps and wires, theoretically you'd do away with a weak point in braking systems. However, you have to deal with the heat generated by the brakes, and heat and electronics don't play nice. On top of that, AFAIK, many materials lose their magnetic properties when heated. So you'd have to find a magnetic material that retains stable magnetic properties over the heat range that calipers will see, as well as circuitry that can tolerate such extreme heat. I doubt such materials would be cheaper than a hydraulic brake system, even if it performed slightly better. And you'd still need tires. Without changing anything but the mechanical braking system, all you might eliminate is brake fade, and we already can do that with current technology, according to reviews of cars like the Viper, Porsche 911's, etc.

Better antilock brake system performance with current brake technology stands to provide greater performance gains than getting distracted by costly electromagnetic systems that can't promise anything other than a more expensive route to current performance standards. I'd guess that a magical electromagnetic braking system might be able to cycle faster than hydraulic systems, giving the potential for better anti-lock braking, but I don't know that the materials exist to make it a reality at anything close to the cost of current hydraulic systems. Just like ceramic rotors, it would probably first show up on impractical supercars long before it ever makes its way to mundane daily drivers, if it ever does.

hotmustang331 said:

Wouldnt the spring make you go backwards onced released?

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everyone's a critic :/

It seems that the magnetic idea would be pretty cool by just using them for the actual clamping force of the pads to the rotors. You could also have a small battery that would power the breaks if the engine were to stop running....or you could have heavy springs that always attempting to make the calipers clamp the rotors, but when the engine is running the oposing force of the magnets overcomes the spring tention, then when the breaks applied the spring and the magnetic attraction work togethor.

or......

we could cut a hole in the bottom of our cars, and stick out our feet to stop.

hey, it worked for Fred Flinstone, right?

An even better idea...using electromagnets for shock absorbers? You can vary the dampening by the voltage to the magnets. And better yet, you can probably make them regenerative as you drive the shocks are constantly moving, so there's probably some energy to be extracted from that.

i think i've seen a company working on the electromagnet ride control system. can't remember who it was though.

Siemens/VDO (a German automotive systems manufacturer) released an electrically-actuated braking system in September of 2005. They call it the "electronic wedge brake" and it does use a small motor to apply the brakes, as 40oz suggested. You can read the details and download a video showing how they work at http://usa.siemensvdo.com/press/releases/chassis-and-carbody/2005/SV_20060403_e2.htm

I am not aware of any car manufacturer who has adopted this system. As long as it costs more than a conventional hydraulic system, I doubt if they will.