applied to many implements and mechanical and other appliances, often spelled “break.” Here there are probably several words, difficult to separate in origin, connected either with “break,” to separate, and its derived meanings, or with the Fr. braquer (appearing in such expressions as braquer un canon, to turn or point a gun), from O. Fr. brac, modern bras, an arm, Lat. bracchium. The word is thus used of a toothed instrument for separating the fibre of flax and hemp; of the “break-rolls” employed in flour manufacture; of a heavy wheeled vehicle used for “breaking in” horses, and hence of a large carriage of the wagonette type; of an arm or lever, and so of the winch of a crossbow and of a pump handle, cf. “brake-pump”; of a curb or bridle for a horse; and of a mechanical appliance for checking the speed of moving vehicles, &c. It is noteworthy that the two last meanings are also possessed by the Fr. frein and the Ger. Bremse.
Brakes, in engineering, are instruments by means of which mechanical energy may be expended in overcoming friction. They are used for two main classes of purpose: (1) to limit or decrease the velocity of a moving body, or to bring it completely to rest; and (2) to measure directly the amount of frictional resistance between two bodies, or indirectly the amount of energy given out by a body or bodies in motion. Machines in which brakes are employed for purposes of the second class are commonly known as dynamometers (q.v.). The other class is exemplified in the brakes used on wheeled vehicles and on cranes, lifts, &c. Here a body, or system of bodies, originally at rest, has been set in motion and has received acceleration up to a certain velocity, the work which has been done in that acceleration being stored up as “actual energy” in the body itself. Before the body can be brought to rest it must part with this energy, expending it in overcoming some external resistance. If the energy be great in proportion to the usual resistance tending to stop the body, the motion will continue for a long time, or through a long distance, before the energy has been completely expended and the body brought to rest. But in certain cases considerations of safety or convenience require that this time or distance be greatly shortened, and this is done by artificially increasing the external resistance for the time being, by means of a brake.
A simple method of obtaining this increased resistance is by pressing a block or shoe of metal or wood against the rim of a moving wheel, or by tightening a flexible strap or band on a rotating pulley or drum. In wheeled road vehicles, a wheel may be prevented from rotating by a chain passed through its spokes and attached to the body of the vehicle, when the resistance is increased by the substitution of a rubbing for a rolling action; or the same effect may be produced by fixing a slipper or skid under the wheel. Other forms of brake depend, not on the friction between two solid bodies, but on the frictional resistance of a fluid, as in “fan” and “pump” brakes. Thus the motion of revolving blades may be opposed by the resistance of the air or of a liquid in which they are made to work, or the motion of a plunger fitting tightly in a cylinder filled with a fluid may be checked by the fluid being prevented from escape except through a narrow orifice. The fly used to regulate the speed of the striking train in a clock is an example of a fan brake, while a pump brake is utilized for controlling the recoil of guns and in the hydraulic buffers sometimes fitted at terminal railway stations to stop trains that enter at excessive speed. On electric tramcars a braking effect is sometimes obtained by arranging the connexions of the motors so that they act as generators driven by the moving car. In this way a counter-torque is exerted on the axles. The current produced is expended by some means, as by being made to operate some frictional braking device, or to magnetize iron shoes carried on the car just over, but clear of, the running rails, to which they are then magnetically attracted (see Traction).
The simplest way of applying a brake is by muscular force, exerted through a hand or foot lever or through a screw, by which the brake block is pressed against the rim of the wheel or the band brake tightened on its drum. This method is sufficient in the case of most road vehicles, and is largely used on railway vehicles. But the power thus available is limited, and becomes inadequate for heavy vehicles moving at high speeds. Moreover, on a train consisting of a number of vehicles, the hand brakes on each of which are independent of all others, either a brakesman must be carried on each, or a number of the brakes must be left unused, with consequent loss of stopping power; while even if there is a brakesman on every vehicle it is impossible to secure that all the brakes throughout the train are applied with the promptness that is necessary in case of emergency.
Considerations of this sort led to the development of power brakes for railway trains. Of these there are five main classes:—
(1) Mechanical brakes, worked by springs, friction wheels on the axle, chains wound on drums, or other mechanical devices, or by the force produced when, by reason of a sudden checking of the speed of the locomotive, the momentum of the cars causes pressure on the draw-bars or buffing Railway power brakes. devices. (2) Hydraulic brakes, worked by means of water forced through pipes into proper mechanism for transmitting its force to the brake-shoes. (3) Electric brakes. (4) Air and vacuum brakes, worked by compressed air or by air at atmospheric pressure operating on a vacuum. (5) Brakes worked by steam or water from the boiler of the engine, operating by means of a cylinder; the use of these is generally limited to the locomotive. Of this kind is the counter-pressure or water brake of L. le Chatelier. If the valve gear of a locomotive in motion be reversed and the steam regulator be left open, the cylinders act as compressors, pumping air from the exhaust pipe into the boiler against the steam pressure. A retarding effect is thus exercised, but at the cost of certain inconveniences due to the passage of hot air and cinders from the smoke box through the cylinders. To remedy these, le Chatelier arranged that a jet of hot water from the boiler should be delivered into the exhaust pipe, so that steam and not the hot flue gases should be pumped back.
Power brakes may be either continuous or independent—continuous if connected throughout the train and with the locomotive by pipes, wires, &c., as the compressed air, vacuum and electric brakes; independent if not so connected, as the buffer-brakes and hand-brakes. Continuous brakes may be divided into two other great classes—automatic and non-automatic. The former are so arranged that they are applied automatically on all the coaches of the train if any important part of the apparatus is broken, or the couplings between cars are ruptured; in an emergency they can be put on by the guard, or (in some cases) by a passenger. Non-automatic brakes can be applied only by the person (usually the engine-driver) to whom the management of them is given; they may become inoperative on all the coaches, and always on those which have become detached, if a coupling or other important and generally essential part is broken. Many mechanical and several hydraulic and electrical continuous brakes have been invented and tried; but experience has shown them so inadequate in practice that they have all practically disappeared, leaving the field to the air and the vacuum brakes. At first these were non-automatic, but in 1872 the automatic air-brake was invented by George Westinghouse, and the automatic vacuum-brake was developed a few years later.
Those respects in which non-automatic brakes are inadequate will be understood from the following summary of the requirements most important in a train-braking apparatus: (1) It must be capable of application to every wheel throughout the train. (2) It must be so prompt in action that the shortest possible time shall elapse between its first application and the moment when the full power can be exerted throughout the train. (3) It must be capable of being applied by the engine-driver or by any of the officials in charge of the train, either in concert or independently. (4) The motion of the train must be arrested in the shortest possible distance. (5) The failure of a vital part must declare itself by causing the brake to be applied and to remain applied until the cause of failure is removed. (6) The breaking of the train in two or more parts must cause immediate automatic application of the brakes on all the coaches. (7)
