Plate brake tester and method

Abstract

A plate brake tester for testing the adequacy of the brakes of a vehicle, particularly suited for testing the brakes of multi-axle vehicles, includes weight bearing plates suitably sized to receive thereon wheel/tire assemblies of a vehicle as the vehicle is driven over the plates. The plates have sensors associated therewith for sensing not only the brake force applied by each wheel/tire assembly, but also for directly sensing the dynamic weight of the wheel/tire assembly on each plate during braking. The adequacy of the brakes is determined from the brake force and the directly sensed dynamic weight. At least some of the sensors are preferably dual axis load cells, each dual axis load cell having one output representing vertical force applied to that plate and having a second output representing horizontal force applied to that plate, the horizontal force being the braking force from the wheel/tire assembly disposed on that plate. The maximum brake force and corresponding dynamic weight is used to determine adhesion utilization for each axle. The deceleration of the vehicle is also determined and the value of maximum deceleration is used as a preferred value of adhesion utilization for each axle. The preferred value of adhesion utilization is scaled, if desired, to take into account loading of the vehicle under test.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.