The tech that’s making us stop faster than ever before
New Dynamic Racing pads stop riders coming unstuck when it matters most
‘NRS sounds quite simple, but making it is hard’ JAN MOHRDIECK, MANAGER SBS
Abrake pad has a hard life. It’s subjected to intense heat, cold, wet, dry, constant vibrations and huge clamping forces, but there is zero room for error. Danish manufacturers SBS have been making pads since 1964 but their latest pad is one of their safest yet.
Keep it simple
Every single brake pad SBS manufacturers now uses the NUCAP Retention System (NRS), which is an innovative way of attaching the pad material to the backing plate using small metal hooks. On a traditional pad, the pad material is bonded to the backing plate but under intense heat, it’s possible for the bond to fail, quite simply causing the braking material to fall off. With the NRS retention method, that’s virtually impossible.
“NRS sounds quite simple really,” says Jan Mohrdieck, Technical Production Manager at SBS. “But actually manufacturing it is very difficult. We’ve been working with NUCAP, who set and maintain the standard, since 2001.
“They developed it for car and truck racing, so we’ve been working on putting the technology on to bikes.” To create the hook, SBS use a 200-ton press with a tool similar to a drill bit to effectively gouge the backing plate and form a curl. The dimensions of the curl are incredibly strict (the height, width and base dimensions are controlled) to ensure it meets the required standards and has good strength without shearing off under the intense force of braking.
Hooked up
While each hook is small (about 1.4mm in width depending on application), it’s their numbers that give the strength. “The amount of hooks varies depending on pad size,” adds Mohrdieck. “But it can be up to 500 in some applications. The difficulty with a motorcycle pad is getting the hooks close to the edge of the backing pad to ensure maximum adhesion.” It’s worked with the pads able to withstand the extreme forces in superbike racing.
“The requirement is 250 N/cm. Our pads are rated to 1200 N/cm with zero failures worldwide. We have 14 different compounds and each one has seen an elevation in sheer strength at high temperature.”