Brake Pads for Heavy Commercial Vehicles

Supporting the already comprehensive range of brake pads for light commercial vehicles, TRW offers an impressive brake pad range in the heavy commercial vehicle sector. TRW has developed a new specification of brake pad specifically trimmed to meet the tough demands of the HCV market. As with all other TRW products, brake pads have been tested to extremes using TRW's stringent quality standards based on vehicle manufacturer specifications.

Range Coverage

Due to the increased fitment of wear indicator devices to modern vehicles, TRW offers a range of 22 separate wear sensors completing the product offering.

Friction Material

Friction material is the most important part of brake pads and so TRW has spent many years developing this material to exceed the high quality expectations for commercial vehicles. The TRW material now performs significantly higher in fade tests than the OES setup. In addition, the HCV material is heavy metal free, based on the TRW environmental policy, well ahead of the pending legislation.

Backing Plate

The innovative TRW backing plate design is superior to other designs currently in the market. It is designed, patented and produced in-house and features a distinctive pin design. Material properties are to TRW OE specification.

Manufacturing

The friction material is mixed and developed in house. Moulds and backing plates are processed in house and adjusted to the friction material.

Different presses are used for different references. Fast moving references are produced using the innovative deep moulding technology, with slower moving references being produced using the conventional flash moulding method, which is more flexible with shorter change-over times. Depending on the size of the pad, single cavities or double cavities used. Under layers are used to improve the adherence between the friction material and the backing plate. Oven process with temperature control plan to burn all organic components. Scorching provides improved braking performance during the bedding-in period. Our new method of pressure–scorching places the pads under 1 tonne of pressure, and evenly heats the surface of the friction material to 600-700°C, providing improved performance earlier than standard pads. 6- 100 % visual inspection before sending goods

Testing

Process batch testing: Additional to the material approval and the ECE R90 homologation, a full testing per batch is carried out in our TRW laboratory. Shear tests and compressibility criteria are permanently under control.

Material testing: All tests are carried out with a laden truck simulating the heaviest load the axle can support (40 tonnes).

High Performance Fade Test

• Green behaviour (performance check after fitting)
• Bedding
• Performance check before Fade test
• Fading test 20 Fade stops
• Performance check after Fade test
• Temperature series 100 °C to 500 °C steps

Alpine test simulation: The test vehicle is towed and decelerates 6% of the maximum payload for 12 minutes. This deceleration force is measured using a load cell between tractor head and test vehicle.

Application testing: The ECE R 90 homologations, based on a European standard, are conducted by independent companies (TÜV, UTAC, and IDIADA). Pads are checked against OES material with a tolerance of ± 15%.

The developments of the HCV friction material are tested to OE specifications by an independent organization called “RDW”. All tests are carried out in comparison to the OES material. Application approval for the different setups exceeds the ECE R90 homologation.