PRODIGYWERKS Carbon Ceramic Floating Discs/Rotors
The ProdigyWerks Carbon Ceramic Floating Rotors features 2-piece or 3-piece design floating rotors/discs with vented design. The secret of the advantages of the carbon-ceramic brake disk is the unique production process over approximately 20 days. To produce carbon-ceramic brake disks, we use carbon fibers which are given a special protective coating and then cut into long fiber sections of defined thickness and length. The production process includes preparation of the fiber mixture, the production process for the disk body and the bell mounting as well as the final machining of the assembled brake disk. The entire production process is monitored with various tests and ends with one final testing. The production process of the ceramic brake body continues with a preform pressed with binding resin to a so called green body which will be converted in the ceramic component by carbonizing at 900 °C and siliconizing at 1700 °C in high vacuum. The complex feature of the manufacturing process is the use of the “lost core” technology – a plastics matrix which defines the design of the cooling vane geometry and which burns out without residues at carbonizing – as well as the different fiber components of the brake disk body, the friction layers on the ring exterior side and the point-shaped abrasion indicators which are integrated into the friction layer.
The carbon-ceramic brake is developed in three main stages to match a car´s particular layout: numerical modeling, the construction and testing of prototypes, and testing on an actual car. The brake disk is first simulated numerically on the computer, using the car´s particular model data. The carbon-ceramic brake disk´s diameter, its thickness and the height of the friction path are only some of the parameters calculated on the computer. Calculations for assembled carbon-ceramic brake disks include the design of the bell connection. This is a highly demanding design task because of differences in coefficients of thermal expansion need to be compensated for at any operating temperature possible. The numerical model also provides the design of the cooling vanes configured to optimize fluid dynamics. In the second development stage, prototypes (test specimens) of the carbon-ceramic brake disks are constructed on the basis of numerical model results and bench-tested, together with the matching brake pads and calipers. In the third and final stage, the disk prototypes are tested on the car. They complete not only high-speed runs on a test circuit but also mountain pass descents and road tests.
