Brakes
A brake is a device which inhibits motion. Its opposite component is a clutch. The rest of this article is dedicated to various types of vehicular brakes.
Most commonly brakes use friction to convert kinetic energy into heat, though other methods of energy conversion may be employed. For example regenerative braking converts much of the energy to electrical energy, which may be stored for later use. Other methods convert kinetic energy into potential energy in such stored forms as pressurized air or pressurized oil. Still other braking methods even transform kinetic energy into different forms, for example by transferring the energy to a rotating flywheel.
Brakes are generally applied to rotating axles or wheels, but may also take other forms such as the surface of a moving fluid (flaps deployed into water or air). Some vehicles use a combination of braking mechanisms, such as drag racing cars with both wheel brakes and a parachute, or airplanes with both wheel brakes and drag flaps raised into the air during landing.
Steering
Steering is the term applied to the collection of components, linkages, etc. which will allow a vessel (ship, boat) or vehicle (car, motorcycle, and bicycle) to follow the desired course. An exception is the case of rail transport by which rail tracks combined together with railroad switches (and also known as 'points' in British English) provide the steering function.
The basic aim of steering is to ensure that the wheels are pointing in the desired directions. This is typically achieved by a series of linkages, rods, pivots and gears. One of the fundamental concepts is that of caster angle- each wheel is steered with a pivot point ahead of the wheel; this makes the steering tend to be self-centering towards the direction travel.
Steering
Many modern cars use rack and pinion steering mechanisms, where the steering wheel turns the pinion gear; the pinion moves the rack, which is a linear gear that meshes with the pinion, converting circular motion into linear motion along the transverse axis of the car (side to side motion). This motion applies steering torque to the swivel pin ball joints that replaced previously used kingpins of the stub axle of the steered wheels via tie rods and a short lever arm called the steering arm.
Power steering assists the driver of an automobile in steering by directing a portion of the vehicle's power to traverse the axis of one or more of the road wheels. As vehicles have become heavier and switched to front wheel drive, particularly using negative offset geometry, along with increases in tire width and diameter, the effort needed to turn the steering wheel manually has increased — often to the point where major physical exertion is required. There are two types of power steering systems—hydraulic and electric/electronic. A hydraulic-electric hybrid system is also possible.
Four-wheel steering (or all-wheel steering) is a system employed by some vehicles to improve steering response, increase vehicle stability while maneuvering at high speed, or to decrease turning radius at low speed.
Tune-Up
A tune-up is regular maintenance performed on an automobile, or more generally, any internal combustion engine. Most automobile manufacturers recommend a tune-up be performed at an interval of 30,000 miles or two years, whichever comes first. |