Brake Test Center Germany

Brake testing has always been an important step in vehicle development to ensure both the safety and performance of the vehicle. Lately, brake testing has also moved to the center of attention when testing emissions. While in the past decades exhaust emissions were drastically reduced due to increasingly stringent regulations, focus is now shifting toward non-exhaust emissions. As a first step, the focus is on particles emitted during braking events, which is referred to as brake wear or Brake Dust. These recent developments pose a new challenge to brake developers, adding an additional element of emissions testing to the already complex R&D process.

Our new Brake Test Center in Floersheim near Frankfurt, Germany is a state-of-the-art facility, equipped with the latest generation of inertia type brake dynamometers. Brake tests are performed by experienced application engineers according to public standards and customer specifications. All dynamometers are equipped with modern measuring, control and automation technology.

Test applications include foundation brakes performance, wear and NVH test (Noise, Vibration, and Harshness) as well as brake emissions (also known as brake dust) measurement, ranging from light duty passenger car up to medium duty van and truck brakes.

The latest addition allows the simulation of different environmental conditions by testing brakes for water, saltwater, and fog. Two spray heads are installed in the brake enclosure to simulate the weather conditions directly during the test cycle. Precise flow sensors are installed to regulate the amount of (salt-)water that is sprayed during the tests, ranging from two to five liters per minute. Additionally, a corrosion test chamber allows for combined shock corrosion tests that fulfill the ISO9227 and similar norms.

Brake testing needs to include both official standard testing requirements as well as customer-specific R&D requirements.

Based on our latest brake testing technologies and together with our experienced testing engineers, we can offer contract testing packages ranging from standard to special or even highly customized options. In the area of Brake Dust measurements, not only particle number (PN) and particle mass (PM) can be measured, but also the particle size distribution (PSD) can be determined with our highly specialized equipment from HORIBA Scientific. Performance testing options include the standards SAE J2522 and AK Master and a wide range of special services, including parking brake or EV braking simulations, disc thickness variation or corrosion testing. Our specialized brake dynamometers for NVH testing enable both SAE J2521 and AK Noise measurements as well as special options such as wheel load or climatic simulations and creep & groan testing.