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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
More than many other auto parts, brake discs are subject to repeated mechanical loads. As a result of this continual abrasion, they produce fine particulate matter, which pose a substantial environmental burden. Now, however, a new coating process developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT and RWTH Aachen University can significantly reduce this impact. By using "Extreme High-speed Laser Material Deposition", known by its German acronym EHLA, it has proved possible to provide brake discs with an effective protection against wear and corrosion in a procedure that is both fast and economic.
Traditional coating processes such as electroplating or thermal spraying. The problem with such processes is that they do not produce a metallurgical bond between the cast iron and the protective coating; moreover, they are expensive and use a lot of materials.
Now, however, a new process avoids these drawbacks. Developed by Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen, together with the Chair for Digital Additive Production DAP at RWTH Aachen University, it is known as Extreme High-speed Laser Material Deposition (EHLA).
[...] Coatings produced with conventional processes have pores and cracks. With the EHLA process, the coating remains intact and therefore provides longer and more effective protection for the component. This increases service life and prevents early failure as a result of damage to the surface of the brake disc. Moreover, the process is suitable for a wide range of materials. Therefore, it is possible to select an environmentally friendly coating for each specific application.
The EHLA process is a new process variant on the well-known laser material deposition, which has proved highly successful in areas such as the repair of turbine blades. EHLA does, however, have a number of decisive advantages. With the EHLA process, the powder particles of the coating material are melted directly in the laser beam, rather than in a melt pool on the surface of the component. Since the melt pool now is fed by liquid drops of material rather than solid particles of powder, the coating process is much faster, rising from the 0.5–2 meters per minute with conventional laser material deposition to as much as 500 meters per minute.
This also substantially reduces the exposure to heat of the material being coated. Unlike conventional laser material deposition, where the heat affected zone can have a depth of one or more millimeters, thermal exposure with the EHLA process remains in the micrometer range. This enables the use of entirely new material combinations such as coatings for aluminum or—as with the brake discs—cast-iron alloys.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 04 2019, @08:51PM (4 children)
LOL -- yeah, I suppose if one checked it thoroughly...
... and I understand the hasn't-checked issue, heh... then again, there are gauges and they work...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:52AM (3 children)
Well, if you pull a dipstick and it has sparklies in the fluid...
As for gauges... I suppose, but with oil they tend to indicate that a problem has already happened.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:37AM (2 children)
True... tho when I bought the truck my mechanic dude checked it, and it looked fine, and it got checked with oil changes, and was always fine... Not sure I wouldn't have been looking at a full rebuild anyway, just sooner, given any abnormal wear makes more abnormal wear.
Of course no one checks that kind of thing every time they drive... we have better expectations of our modern tech, perhaps not always justified. :(
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:05PM (1 child)
I have better expectations of our modern tech, unfortunately I also have worse expectations of our modern technicians. In the romanticized "good old days" the machine was a flimsy piece of junk, but the technician tended (more often) to completely understand it, how to properly diagnose and maintain it, so at least you got the meager lifetime out of it that was expected.
As I recall, we sold our '69 Camaro because it was "nearly worn out" at 70,000 miles.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 06 2019, @03:24AM
Good point; I've observed the same -- old cars were more repairable, but as they approached that 100k mark, they needed more repairs and might get beyond repair if let go even a little bit. (Trucks not so much, being made for abuse, if only by overkill in everything.) I wouldn't call the old cars flimsy (metal parts were much heavier back then), but tolerances and lubricants have greatly improved, and there's less access for grit to get in, so I expect the reduced wear on moving parts has a lot to do with it.
Electronics, tho... my old mechanic mostly worked on newish cars; my '78 F100 was probably the oldest vehicle he serviced, just the reality in SoCal that there's a lot of vehicle churn due to long commutes, so old ones are not common. Anyway... when something went wrong with those newish cars, they'd spend 12 hours hooked to the computer and half the time they still didn't get diagnosed; all very expensive and frustrating for everyone. Meanwhile when something broke on my old truck it was obvious -- I could just point at the leaking or busted part and say look here, fix that, and it was quick and relatively cheap. (Only retired at 34yrs/240k miles cuz when I moved circumstances conspired to prevent taking both trucks. The "new" truck has more miles on it, and will probably go another 20 years.)
And then there's what used to be a fender-bender; now what with all the plastic and crumple zones and unibody, the same ding totals the new car. So it goes both ways. Back in the mists of time I had a '63 Olds F85 and I regularly carried heavy stuff on the roof without damaging it. (Apparently I mistook it for a truck.) Try that now without a roof rack and see what happens! Well, unless you drive a Lada....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3z5LOnii-4 [youtube.com]
Crazy Russians. :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.