Brake design and safety

What Hacker News says

1. wshSep 2021
   The Bosch Automotive Handbook, now in its tenth English-language edition, is the standard one-volume reference. Older, but still useful, are Garrett et al., The Motor Vehicle, and U.S. Army TM 9-8000, Principles of Automotive Vehicles. There are also many books on specific subjects, such as Limpert, Brake Design and Safety, or Hoag & Dondlinger, Vehicular Engine Design.

   If you’re more interested in servicing, I’d strongly recommend the automakers’ paper or electronic workshop manuals and training materials: for newer, more sophisticated models, these may be the only source of the information needed for safe, effective repairs and maintenance.

   There are also textbooks published for use in community colleges, and works such as the Honda Common Service Manual, which was written for motorcycle and power equipment technicians but has a good deal of information applicable to full-size vehicles.

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2. auxymSep 2014
   I finished a mechanical engineering degree 2 years ago and as my final year design project, I chose to design and build (in a team with 7 other students) a small offroad vehicle from the ground up [1]. I learned that automobiles, from an engineering standpoint, are a really complex interaction of a very large amount of systems. I was also surprised by how different everything in cars was different from what we learned in school. It made me realize how the curriculum was highly focused on the manufacturing industry (where ~75%, OTOH, of graduates end up working).

   Anyways, that being said, if your interest is fixing up your car, then yeah, as others have pointed out, shop manuals (3rd party or official) along with the web (google/youtube) is a very good starting point. I got interested in mechanics as a teen using these resources for small-engined vehicles (various dirt bikes and snowmobiles).

   Still, I'll list some references I found interesting from the viewpoint of a young engineer designing a car from the ground up.

   Braess, Hans-Hermann et Seiffert, Ulrich. Handbook of Automitive Engineering. Warrendale : SAE International, 2005. (Bosch is the most known "Automotive Handbook", but I liked this one better. Even though it's a 'handbook', it's still interesting to read, as opposed to Bosch which is really a reference. Good focus on passenger cars.)

   Limpert, Rudolf. Brake Design And Safety. Warrendale, PA : SAE International, 1999. (Everything on brake systems and safety, with an interesting perspective from accident reconstitution. Good focus on passenger vehicles tool.)

   William F. Milliken, Douglas L. Milliken, Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, SAE International, 1995 (known as RCVD, the 'bible' of vehicle dynamics, oriented mostly for race cars.)

   Dixon, John C. Tires, Suspension, and Handling, Warrendale, PA : SAE International, 1996. (Similar to RCVD, somewhat shorter and easier to digest IIRC)

   Ferguson, C. R. and Kirkpatrick, A. T. Internal Combustion Engines : Applied Thermosciences, Wiley, 2000 (Textbook I used in an undegrad course on ICEs, I liked it. The authors wrote some java applets that implement many basic ICE calculations, fun to play around with: http://www.wiley.com/college/mechs/ferguson356174/apps/apps....)

   Wong, J.Y. Theory of Ground Vehicles. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2008 (Mostly focused on various off-road vehicles, suspension, traction and handling)

   Aird, Forbes, Race Car Chassis: Design and Construction, Motorbooks International (July 1997). (Good overview of 'classic' design and construction techniques for race car chassis. Somewhat dated in the sense that it doesn't cover modern composite chassis. Worked well enough as an intro for the design of our tubular space frame)

   [1] The project website went offline, sadly. Here's some local media coverage (in french) http://www.lapresse.ca/la-tribune/economie-et-innovation/201...

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