Advantages
Air brakes are used as an alternative to hydraulic brakes which are used on lighter vehicles such as automobiles. Hydraulic brakes use a fluid (hydraulic fluid) to transfer pressure from the brake pedal to the brake shoe to stop the vehicle. Air brakes have several advantages for large multitrailer vehicles:
- The supply of air is unlimited, so the brake system can never run out of its operating fluid, as hydraulic brakes can. Minor leaks do not result in brake failures.
- Air line couplings are easier to attach and detach than hydraulic lines; there is no danger of letting air into the hydraulic fluid. So air brake circuits of trailers can be attached and removed easily by operators with no training.
- Air not only serves as a fluid for transmission of force, but also stores potential energy. So it can serve to control the force applied. Air brake systems include an air tank that stores sufficient energy to stop the vehicle if the compressor fails.
- Air brakes are effective even with considerable leakage, so an air brake system can be designed with sufficient "fail-safe" capacity to stop the vehicle safely even when leaking.
Read more about this topic: Air Brake (road Vehicle)
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“For, the advantages which fashion values, are plants which thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)