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More about Rebrake - the European cooperation for development of environmentally friendly car brakes

Published May 22, 2013

Since 1 March this year, the unit System and Component Design at KTH department of Machine Design, along with the Italian brake manufacturer Brembo SpA and the University of Trento (Italy) has been working to reduce harmful airborne particles that comes from the brakes on our cars.

The collaboration will run for four years and is an EU-funded Marie Curie project that will promote the exchange of knowledge between industry and universities in Europe. The project involves 15 researchers from the three organizations and researchers will visit each other's organizations in periods to work together on the spot.

As a first part of the project, five guest researchers from Brembo SpA will be on hand at KTH department of Machine Design during the spring and summer, with the help of our tribological parameters and particle meter, to study the airborne particles generated by wear of the materials commonly used in modern disc brakes . In parallel with the experimental work they also work with researchers from the unit System and Component Design for the development of new computer-based modelling and simulation tools for predicting particle generation from the braking system.

Modern cars are usually equipped with disc brakes and braking maneuvers generates airborne particles that can be harmful.