ICER BRAKES has been awarded with the EUREKA Label, which distinguishes technological projects that have been approved by the European organization and represents an instrument to support international technological cooperation, promoting the competitiveness of European companies with the development of technological projects, guided to products with a clear comercial interest in the international market and base on innovative technologies.
The project MILDBASS (acronym for Material Innovation for Low Dust Brake Systems) enables transnational cooperation among organizations with complementary capabilities that pursue the overall objective of development of an environmentally friendly brake system by minimizing the brake dust which is released upon interaction between rotor and friction material. To this extent, the scope of the project will be developing an optimum coating for rotor and an adapted friction material.
MILDBASS is formed by a partnership of 3 companies (ICER BRAKES, DEKA and MICROTHERM) under the leadership of a large industry (TOFAŞ) as the coordinator, engaged in a sustainable cooperation for joint research and development activities of 24 months and follow-up engineering and manufacturing for the global market.
In particular, the goals of the project will be the following:
- Achieve a 50% reduction of brake dust, environment friendly content and a cleaner appearance on rim, anticipating the increasingly stricter legislations on emissions by the EU
This will be carried out by:
- - A specific thermal spray coating application for brake discs.
- - A specific friction material formulation developed to work in harmony treated rotor surfaces in order to minimize the brake dust. Besides this main target, new friction material should be capable of satisfying all other performances requested from the brake system such as efficiency, wear and NVH.
- Extending the lifetime of service of rotors by making them corrosion free and increasing the wear resistance
It is important to note that this development will be of special important for electric and hybrid vehicles, not only for adding an ecological extra with the reduction of emissions, but also avoiding the corrosion issue on the rotor surface.
In PHEV (Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) and BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) the hydraulic brakes will be used less frequently than in ICE (Internal Combustion Engine), due to the regenerative braking. The rotors will be exposed to more corrosión caused by humidity, temperature and salinity, because the cleaning effect of the friction pads will be reduced.