Total balanced braking is a product of torque or foundation balance, pneumatic pressure balance, pneumatic timing balance, and temperature balance.Torque balance. This deals with the hardware parts of a brake system. Factors that affect torque balance include: different angles between slack adjusters and brake chamber push rods, improper lining-to-drum contact, different size brake drums, mismatched brake return springs, different friction values of lining on the same axle, and improper brake adjustments. For a five-axle vehicle combination, a proper torque balance would have 20% of braking effort on the steer axle, 40% on the drive axles and 40% on the trailer axles. Pneumatic pressure balance. This pertains to the proper air pressure delivered equally to all wheels so that each wheel does its share of braking based on the proportion of weight being carried.

"Blankets are usually an afterthought," Buckett said. "Typically an engine system is developed and installed in the equipment, and then something happens. Maybe it''s in the engine compartment where the components can''t easily be modified or changed. Maybe the turbo is too close to something, or maybe another component is not reacting well to the ambient heat."An insulation blanket or cover is the usual solution," Buckett said. "And this is only going to increase as exhaust emissions regulations tighten and engines run hotter. The problem is we don''t get involved until it''s too late, after it''s become a problem, when it could have been done be as an engineered solution.

"We''re focusing our resources in engineering and product development at providing solutions for both heat and noise," Buckett said. He outlined a number of recent projects where Thermal Structures has done a complete thermal profile of the engine system as well as looking at the vibration involved and the operating environment of the equipment before selecting the materials. He added that the company has also recently worked with a number of diesel aftertreatment manufacturers in engineering both sound and heat products into those developing systems.

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