How to make a ceramic brake disc

Also saw the show; very interesting and thanks for posting the link.

 

I saw that too.... they do feature some pretty cool things from time to time.

Jedi

 

So why are they so friggin expensive if it's just some aluminum and the sweepings from a carbon fiber factory floor??



Kidding of course......kinda.

 

thanks I enjoyed watching that

 

That was interesting, but it still doesn't explain to me why they're so expensive. I bet they'll come down in price once more companies get the process down...

 

Thanks for posting that. Very informative.

As to why they're expensive, it would appear that building the discs is still a manual process and a lot of labor is involved to manufacture and to inspect. That can't be cheap.

Secondly, the raw material may not be readily available. That will drive up costs.

I'm sure there's a lot of energy required to operate the presses, as well as the oven that has to keep the discs at over 1800F for 48 hours (!)

Economies of scale would probably make them a lot cheaper than what we have to buy them for, but it's not quite as commonplace as steel rotors and the tooling that goes with them.

Finally, there's that yellow box they come in, usually with horsies on them. That box alone quadruples the price!

 

F1 cars use carbon-carbon brakes, instead of the carbon ceramics that are fitted to street cars. Carbon brakes are incredibly hard to brake with accurately. CCM's are a bit of a marketing gimmick, their real advantage over steel brakes is that they don't fade on the street.

 

Very cool... Thanks for posting.