Carbon Ceramic Brakes Vs Steel

While conventional brakes are made of steel these discs are formed from a mixture of powders resins and fibres and covered with a ceramic layer.

Carbon ceramic brakes vs steel.

The metallic content helps the rotor avoid cracking under high stress and brake noise and vibration are reduced as well. The high performance material has numerous benefits. They can take a lot of heat and dissipate it quickly. The carbon ceramic brakes fitted as standard on many high performance vehicles are constructed in one of two ways either a core of ceramic material reinforced with chopped carbon fibre with an additional ceramic layer on the friction surface or simply the core of ceramic material with chopped carbon fibre and no outer friction layer.

These are iron but with a lot of carbon mixed in. Carbon ceramic brakes on the other hand are virtually immune to corrosion. Watson explained that ceramic discs can degrade if you re hard on the brakes and that heat build up will degrade the carbon fibers in the disc rotor wear comes no matter the rotor material. And it s this 3 way blitz where carbon ceramics shine over steel.

Instead they reduce brake fade which gives them a huge advantage at the race track if you re spending a lot of time on the track your carbon ceramic brakes will basically never fade even with many laps of. This composite construction offers lighter stronger and more durable disks than their steel counterparts. Even the upcoming alfa romeo giulia will sport carbon ceramic brakes as an option. Ceramic brake pads cause much less noise in comparison to metallic brake pads because they are not as abrasive.

The only downside is price which is significantly higher than straight iron or aluminum. I have read several times that the gap is less then 2 to 1. Finally carbon ceramic brakes are much cleaner and quieter than conventional steel brakes. Carbon ceramic brakes are indeed better that steel brakes but they don t decrease stopping distance as people commonly think.

This takes a lot of stress off the brake discs which means they will last longer too. He very positively stated that changing to steel brakes would result in braking distances 5 times as long as with the current carbon carbon brakes. I was a dinner last night with a person senior in the fia circuit community. This is because the material they re made from is much less reactive than steel and iron due to the material s tightly bonded structure.