DISC BRAKES-WHY HAVE THEM?
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According to Scania's Sten Lundgren, disc brakes offer a number of advantages: "When it comes to pad wear there are added safely margins when braking from high speeds in terms of being able to handle higher temperatures," he says. "While that's probably not a benefit for the operator it certainly is for the driver. For the operator there's lower weight (between 25-30k9 on a 4)(2 tractor), better control, less vibration and with EBS there is much more even wear as the system applies the brakes evenly across the outfit.
"As you're putting down the some energy across each disc you get better braking with exactly the same forces on each wheel," he adds. "And with more even wear you get less downtime." When it comes to service life, Lundgren says operators will get at least the same life From discs as they do from drums.
Operators of disc-braked vehicles could further benefit from increased commonality of components.
Disc-braked trucks also need less preparafion for regulatory check, says Lundgren: "In field trials in Sweden they go through their annual test without having to dismantle the system fully—there's far less maintenance required."
While the average UK haulier tends to be suspicious of electronic systems, Lundgren says that since starting trials with EBS "we've learnt a lot about cables, connectors, and electro-mechanical components" with the result that reliability is much better than earlier electronic systems. So far the biggest customer For EBS Scanias has been Germany with some 70% of all EBS tractors sold into that country. "Maybe they've seen the argument more readily," Lundgren concludes.