Two years of development for new 'Made in Italy' centre ground road discsTurin, Italy based brake components specialist Newfren has been respected worldwide for its brake discs for decades. Newfren was an early entrant into the brake discs market 'back in the day' and has continuously invested in materials research, testing and manufacturing technology to stay at the cutting edge of brake disc design and performance.
The company has now taken its "high quality, Made in Italy" production to a new level with a new range of road discs that are being laser cut and centre ground from AISI 420 steel plate.
The production process includes long term established and trusted partners in the Turin area, and starts and finishes at the company's 10,000 sq m Turin factory. This involves thermal treatment after laser cutting in order to harden the raw material, then immersing each disc into a paint bath to protect all the parts that will remain exposed and not affected by contact wear with the brake pad.
For the grinding process, Newfren is using what is considered to be the hardest of the available techniques in order to guarantee the highest quality. Also referred to as vertical grinding with opposing planes, centreless grinding is a machining process that uses abrasive cutting to remove material from both the parts at the same time.
It differs from centered grinding operations in that no spindle or fixture is used to locate and secure the workpiece - it is secured between two rotary grinding wheels, and the speed of their rotation relative to each other determines the rate at which material is removed. As a manufacturing technique it is typically used in preference to other grinding processes for operations where many parts must be processed in a short time with a very high degree of precision.
Newfren says that in order to guarantee the best possible braking performance from its new discs, and reduce vibrations to the absolute minimum possible, it has trialled, tested and explored a wide range of factors - including the mechanical characteristics of the materials, the geometry of the hub and braking band, the holes of the band and the tolerances of flatness and parallelism - and evolved, refined and modified production processes repeatedly.
This new road disc project has dominated R&D activity for two years now and extensive after- track testing and releasing them to racers and teams for competitive use earlier this year before the coronavirus lockdown, the company says it is now ready to release them as a new aftermarket programme, having concluded testing on the new Moto3 discs at Misano and Mugello as soon as the teams were able to get back on the track.
Newfren says that the response from its riders was "totally enthusiastic", reporting "excellent feeling, no vibration and progressive and high performing braking power". The discs are mated with CNC-machined from solid hubs and bobbins in 7075 Ergal (aluminium zinc alloy) and T6 heat treatment hardened with hard oxidation 50 ยต.
www.newfren.com
