Published on Sep 03, 2023
To date, little is known about brake performance of commercial motor vehicles within the India . However, since faulty brakes are a primary cause of collisions in the trucking industry and since brakes present a significant cost to trucking companies, brake life and wear are of great interest to the transportation community.
This project seeks to investigate brake performance quantitatively, in contrast with the current method of visual inspection. A Performance Based Brake Tester (PBBT) has been installed at the Greene County Weigh Station in Tennessee for the purpose of assessing brake force and brake wear over the life of new brakes used in various industries.
It uses in-ground roller dynamometers to objectively evaluate braking force of each wheel end. Since brake force is proportional to vehicle weight, artificial axle loading (AAL) will provide constant loads for data analysis. In this experiment, AAL will increase each axle load to 80% Gross Axle Weight Rating (GAWR) through a hydraulically operated hook. In order to determine wear over brake life, aftermarket brake drums and shoes will be supplied to four industry partners who maintain fleets of class-8 vehicles.
Tankers, dry-box vans, dump trucks, and motor coaches will be tested in order to provide data in each category. Each vehicle will be tested on a PBBT over the brake life, which may range from 8 to 18 months, at regular intervals, which will vary from weekly to monthly dependent on the type of truck.
The PBBT will collect real-world data such as vehicle weight, brake force, AAL, brake-line air pressure, and eccentricity of brake drums; while the researcher will record registration numbers and vehicle mileage and oversee the test. The researcher will also measure thickness of brake pads with a caliper and the ovality of brake drums with a digital indicator before and after the testing period to determine performance as a function of wear.
I wrote the test plan for the experiment, incorporating information about the partners, the test procedure for the PBBT, and equipment used to make initial measurements of eccentricity. The results from this experiment will provide a previously unavailable performance curve for brakes across several industries, and will lay groundwork for future studies in which the PBBT may be utilized as a diagnostic tool for faulty brakes
The general description gives an "executive overview" and is very client-oriented. It expounds on the functional and data requirements of the application. It also lists the limitations, assumptions and dependencies of the application. Section 3.0, the specific requirements section, includes the developers' technical view of the client's expectation of the application. It also touches on the performance and quality requirements of the application and provides a solid definition of the interface.
The entire system is divided into 3 major modules
Administrator module
Transaction.
Inventory
Intel P4 1.5GHz or above
512MB RAM
80GB HDD Minimum
OPERATING PLATFORM : WINDOWS 2000/NT/XP
RDBMS : SQLSERVER 2000
SOFTWARE : VS.NET 2003
FRONT END TOOL : ASP.NET