Development of Brake Booster Design for Electric City Cars

Mekara Electric Vehicle 02 is a type of city car that converts conventional vehicles into electric vehicles at the Universitas Indonesia. The brake booster component system still uses a type of vacuum brake booster. The brake booster is a component in the brake system that reduces the force on the driver's pedal in the vehicle braking process. The vacuum brake booster requires a vacuum generated by the engine intake manifold. In an electric car, there is no vacuum in the intake manifold because the engine is changed by an electric motor. The use of a vacuum brake booster in electric cars requires an additional component of a vacuum pump. The use of a vacuum pump on a vehicle battery requires electricity consumption of 3.9 Watt hours. In this study, we aim to design a new electric brake booster mechanism as a replacement for the vacuum brake booster mechanism. We used our proposed method to design an electric brake booster component and make a prototype. The prototype was tested using a rig test simulation. The electric brake amplifier applies the magnetic force generated by the solenoid and pulls the lever bar connected to the brake master. The brake pedal that is stepped on by the driver activates the flow of electricity on the solenoid and activates a magnetic pull force so that the driver's force in pressing the brake pedal will be assisted by an electric brake booster mechanism. Electric brake boosters can reduce electricity consumption by 28.2%.

Brake booster; Brake system; Electric brake booster; Electromagnetic brake; Solenoid brake system

According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020), 91% of the world's population is in a bad air environment that exceeds the limits set by the WHO. One of the causes of air pollution is the transportation sector. The greater the emissions produced due to increased production, the farther the distance traveled by a company to distribute its products due to greater energy consumption (Mubarak and Rahman, 2020). Replacing fossil fuel vehicles with electric vehicles is a way to tackle air pollution in the transportation sector  (Zulkarnain et al., 2012; Helmers et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2021).

        Universitas Indonesia launched an urban city car-type electric vehicle: Makara Electric Vehicle-02 (MEV-02). The MEV-02 uses an induction motor type with a power of 7.5 kW and a battery capacity of 102 Ah. It can travel at a speed of up to 80 km/hour.

The brake system is one of the most important parts for a vehicle to deaccelerate or stop the vehicle (Aleksandrowicz, 2019). City Car MEV-02 UI is a conversion vehicle from fossil fuels to electric vehicles; therefore, the brake booster component system still uses the Vacum Brake Booster type. The vacuum brake booster requires air vacuum generated by the engine intake manifold (Walker et al., 2019), whereas electric cars lack a vacuum in the intake manifold because the engine is converted by an electric motor. To use a vacuum-type brake booster in an electric car, it is necessary to have an additional vacuum pump component (Albrichsfeld and Jürgen, 2009; Berjoza et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2018). Previously, City Car MEV-02 used a 12 DC Electric Vacuum Pump type HDZKB-F1 as an additional component to support the vacuum brake booster component to work. By adding the vacuum pump, an additional 250 mm × 170 mm × 170 mm space is required on the vehicle, with an additional weight of 2.6 kg. The consumption of using a vacuum pump on the vehicle battery is 3.9 Wh. In electric vehicles, the use of battery consumption is very disadvantageous because it is also used by the additional vacuum pump (Prasetya et al., 2020).

Siregar et al. (2020) investigated the causes of brake failure due to friction overheating that occurs in brake components between brake elements due to weight bearing and vehicle speed. Zainuri et al. (2017) explored the transmission system of MEV-02 using the zero shift system. The zero shift system is a transmission that can shift gears without changing periods. Lyu and Jing (2019) studied the brake booster component of the brake system for city cars. The brake booster serves to increase the driver's driving force during braking, thus making the braking process lighter and more comfortable for the driver (Guan et al., 2013; Lyu and Jing, 2019). Without a brake booster, the driver needs more power to step on the brake pedal. This is because the force required by the vehicle when moving is relatively large. In this study, we aim to convert the vacuum-type brake booster system into a new model of an electric brake booster. It uses the solenoid principle as the prime mover. The new brake booster model does not need to add a vacuum pump component. Therefore, it does not require additional space or weight on the vehicle. The battery energy used is expected to be less than using a vacuum pump. The vacuum energy is used as an additional braking force by employing many conversion steps from battery energy to motion energy to create a vacuum. if we can reduce the conversion step only from battery energy to magnetic energy to create an additional braking force, then efficiency can be increased. The existence of this brake booster is expected to provide safety and comfort for drivers in the braking process and increase the efficiency of vehicle battery usage. Furthermore, we conduct a preliminary analysis to design a new electric brake booster alongside test experiments on the electric brake booster prototype. The achievements in this study are expected to reduce space, weight, and energy consumption. 

     The electric brake booster is designed for City Car MEV-02 with a maximum vehicle weight of 1286 kg and a maximum vehicle speed of 80 km/hour. The design of the electric brake booster mechanism uses magnetic force with the principle of the electrified solenoid. Electric brake booster cuts the energy conversion steps used in the previous system on the MEV-02 UI vehicle. The use of electric power-assisted braking only converts battery electrical energy into electromagnetic energy as a driving force for the driver when braking. Electric brake booster is designed to replace the vacuum brake booster and does not require additional volume from the vacuum pump. Electric power-assisted braking has a total volume of 1.004×10^?2 m³ which can reduce the volume of the vacuum brake booster and vacuum pump by 1.32×10^?2 m³. The total mass of the previous vacuum brake booster and vacuum pump is 5.7 kg. Electric brake booster is 4.8 kg so that it can reduce weight from the previous one. Electric brake booster of 2.8 Wh replaces a vacuum pump that consumes 3.9 Wh of electricity, so it can save battery electricity by 28.2%.

      The author would like to thank the Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia, for financial support under the Research Grant Program for International Indexed Publication Students in Technology and Health 2020 (NKB-2448/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2020) and Publikasi terindeks International (PUTI NKB-645/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2020).

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