How Brake Calipers Work?
What are Brake Calipers?
Brake calipers are part of the disc braking system used in most of the modern cars. The entire system consists of the rotor, caliper and pads. The caliper work as an actuator that presses the pads to the rotor in order to create friction that retards the rotation of a shaft, either to reduce its rotational speed or to hold it stationary and the vehicle comes to halt. The caliper is controlled by hydraulic pressure through brake lines attached to the vehicle’s brake master cylinder.
There are two types of brake caliper- floating and fixed. Fixed brakes are most common in vehicles, even though they are more expensive. Still, floating calipers are not unusual. Fixed calipers work by compressing the pads from both the sides towards the disc at the same time, with the caliper itself remaining fixed. Floating calipers are cheaper and simpler to produce and works by pressing one side into the caliper and then pulling the other side to match once the primary side has stopped against the rotor. These are prone to failure. Both caliper types use one or more pistons which do the actual work.