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A Brake wear indicator is used to warn the user and/or owner of a vehicle that the brake pad is in need of replacement. The main area of use for this is on motor vehicles with more than three wheels. However brake wear indicators are also useful for brake pads in industrial applications, including wind turbines and cranes. This article refers to disc brakes as an example, but the principle is the same for other types of friction brakes. == Types of indicators == There are different types of wear indicators for brake pads: * Ocular inspection: A cut is made in the pad material to the depth where it shall be replaced. Requires manual inspection of the pads. * Mechanical: A metal plate is designed to scratch the brake disk causing a noise when the pad has worn down to the desired level. * Electrical: A metal body is embedded in the pad material that comes in contact with the rotor when the desired wear level is reached. This will light an indicator in the instrument cluster. * Position sensor: A sensor that measures the position of the brake mechanics and indicates to the driver when the desired position has been achieved. Of the alternatives above the first three are simple and cheap since their lifetime coincides with the service life of the brake pad. The last one is more expensive since the sensors needs to be designed to survive the designed service life of the vehicle. This means that the last alternative is usually only seen on heavy duty vehicles. The idea is that in all cases alert the driver and/or owner of the vehicle that it is time to replace the brake pads to ensure that the traffic safety is preserved for the vehicle. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brake wear indicator」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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