New Braking Research Centre
Professor John Fieldhouse and Professor Andrew Day have joined forces to establish a new Braking Research Centre at the University of Bradford.
This will bring together expertise, facilities and equipment to establish a “Centre of Excellence” in Brakes and Braking Research in the UK.
John Fieldhouse is one of the world’s leading experts in Brake Noise and Judder, and also has a very wide range of knowledge and experience in all aspects of braking system design and performance, having researched for over 25 years while at the University of Huddersfield. Andrew Day has experience in the friction materials industry and has completed over 25 years of research at the University of Bradford into disc, drum brake and braking system design, including regenerative braking. He directs the annual course which is held every year at the University of Bradford, since 1997.
John Fieldhouse and Andrew Day have worked with many companies and organisations in the UK, Europe, and worldwide, including Bentley, Honda, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, Bosch, TMD Friction, Roulunds, Meritor, BPW, Alcon, VALX, TMETC, and many more. Work has been presented regularly at SAE Brake Colloquia in addition to SAE Congress, FISITA, EAEC, and IMechE events.
The Centre will host a which will bring together some new and several existing specialist research test rigs, including a 24kW ¼ vehicle noise rig, a 90kW judder rig, 7.5kW rigs for individual wheel brake and vehicle axle and brakes NVH research, a 45kW commercial vehicle brake NVH test rig, a light duty DTV test rig, a heavy duty sample friction tester (up to 5W/mm2), plus laser holographic interferometry instrumentation, temperature measurement and data logging.
Associated with this research laboratory hardware the new Centre will have access to other equipment and facilities at the University of Bradford, including an axle mounted chassis dynamometer, a fully equipped acoustics and noise measurement laboratory, and a fully equipped materials laboratory with Electron Microscopy also available. On the analysis, modelling and simulation front, the University has a full range of CAE systems, including ABAQUS, ADAMS, and Matlab.
More information
For more information on the new Braking Research Centre at the University of Bradford, or if you would like to get involved with the establishment of the Centre’s facilities and its development please contact
Dr. David Bryant: d.bryant@bradford.ac.uk
Prof. John Fieldhouse: john.fieldhouse@ntlworld.com