Formule 1 brake discs and everything involved!

[Tommy Cookers]

With an aero-heavy car the general technique is a large force which trails off as you turn in (unsurprisingly known as "trail braking").

trail braking is simultaneous braking and cornering, in principle unrelated to DF or non-existence of DF
necessary, in any car, where the track does not lend itself (pre-exit) to constant radius driving
it was called trail braking (in the US anyway, via the SCCA training ?) decades before aero
similarly, it was used eg in F1 for decades before being so called

the braking force (with aero DF) falls dramatically with speed, surely that's a major demand on the driver's skill
so if the rules allowed any scope for beneficial easing of that demand, the brake systems would be designed accordingly ?

EDIT Colin Campbell wrote that the industry regarded normal (male) drivers as developing a 300lb force at the brake pedal
surely F1 cars have some brake servo action (not exactly as in road cars ?)
and this action could be varied ? (rules permitting)
so that the critical pedal load wouldn't vary so hugely with speed

[thepowerofnone]

@Tommy Cookers, you are very right, "trail braking" in its most classical sense is applied to motorbikes and involves careful application of the brake into the turn in of the corner. Whilst it is uncommon for an F1 driver to brake substantially mid corner, with a few notable exceptions (China Turn 1 is very much in my mind right now), the braking technique is similar in so much as it involves a steep, linear ramp in braking force to a peak, then a more or less exponential decay in braking force prior to, or briefly after turn in. It is however worth noting that one of the gains of the peak, the loading of the front tyres, only yields benefit if the driver begins turn in with them loaded: therefore the trail off of braking force is happening during the turn in phase and technically that is trail braking.

I am not sure I fully understand what you are trying to say in your second point, but from what I have interpreted you are implying that braking isn't more neutral (as opposed to strongly biased towards high speeds) across the speeds because of some regulation restriction. I can well imagine I have misinterpreted, but I can't work out where. That is not true - braking is favoured at high speeds for the same reason DF benefits cornering more at high speeds, because the larger DF means that the tyres are more heavily loaded so the force which they can generate with the road surface is larger.

A second reason that a driver would not want to be applying braking inputs mid corner is that it would alter the pitch of the car, which would upset aerodynamic balance in the transient phase.

[Hakosuka]

What exactly are you writing about the brakes?
History of the advancement in brake technology, or are you doing an analysis?

Thank you all very much for all of the information posted above.

I'm doing an analysis and materialselection on brake discs. I'm following the Ashby method but in order to put a limit on the compressive strength the material should have. I need to know how much force is applied by the brake pads on the brake disc. I know that this is not a critical piece of information in the Ashby selection process but I would to have an idea.

Still need to read the entire topic again. I have not been able to get to a computer in a while. Therefore my late response

[Hakosuka]

There we are, found some for you: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a308/ ... emetry.png
Obviously beware believing it too much, it looks like its some sort of simulator from their website, but it shows you braking trails nicely.

Thanks!

I have found this one http://scarbsf1.files.wordpress.com/201 ... 2011-1.jpg.
It shows brakepressure in bars but this still does not help with. I like your insight and advice in you post. This indeed helps me to put it all together.