There’s about to be a new name in lightweight, high-performance brakes: Orbis. If the name rings a bell, our 2018 test drive of a Honda Civic Type R had a set of Orbis wheel-hub motors fitted to the rear axle. Those motors took up all the space where normal brake rotors and calipers would go, so the company devised its own “inside-out” disc brake system that featured a large-diameter cross-drilled rotor mounted directly to the wheel. The rotor was squeezed from the inside by a caliper, which had to be designed to swing inward when removing the wheel. The design caught the eye of a NASA engineer who contacted Orbis with some suggested improvements and ended up collaborating on the project. The result is new Periodic Wave Disc Brake Rotor, said to rival the best performance aftermarket brakes available today.
NASA Involvement
A NASA expert in heat dissipation and shielding saw pictures of the Orbis brake setup and contacted the company with ideas for significantly improving it. Then in 2018 the space agency entered a collaboration and licensing agreement with Orbis to develop its novel brake system, known as the Periodic Wave Disc Brake Rotor. NASA describes the technology as a “lightweight brake rotor design with high heat dissipation using novel surface cooling technology. “
What Makes Orbis High-Performance Brakes Different?
The rotors’ primary method of heat dissipation differentiates the NASA/Orbis brakes from other disc brake systems. Traditional iron or carbon-ceramic rotors primarily feature internal venting. The braking surfaces are separated by vanes that grab air from around the hub and sling it out centrifugally, carrying heat away from the contact area.
In some configurations, perforations are drilled or cast into the rotor to permit gasses emitted from the hot pads to flow out through the same veins with this internal air venting “system.” The NASA/Orbis design relies solely on surface cooling, and it provides machined slots (or dimples in some cases) on the surface for gases building to collect for distribution.
The concept leverages the forced convection, radiation, and conduction of airflow over the brake rotor’s surface. Sine-wave-shaped scalloping of the outer edges of the brake rotor send air vortices streaming across the surface, and the dimples or machined grooves in the surface area draw this air down in to scavenge heat out of these dimples, before exiting on a trajectory up and away from the surface.
Two Form Factors
Orbis Brakes want to bring this technology to market quickly as an aftermarket upgrade, ideal for the Tesla Plaid crowd, so one design (shown at left) is configured to replace conventional rotors and calipers inside any manufacturer’s wheel. It therefore resembles a common standard brake rotor and caliper setup, except the Orbis rotor is thinner, with the caliper downsized to match while utilizing the same attachment points.
The second concept (pictured above on the right) is a ring-rotor design, which is keyed to engage slots in a special Orbis-supplied lightweight forged aluminum wheel, with an inboard caliper that still utilizes OEM caliper mounts. With this design, the brake must be hydraulically locked to secure the rotor in place when removing the wheel.
This concept uses a “dog-bone” style monobloc caliper that places two pairs of pistons farther apart, each actuating its own set of pads (four pistons with four pads). The center of pressure of the pads is farther out from the wheel centerline with this ring-rotor design, offering greater leverage. That means less braking pressure is required to generate the same braking force of other designs, while generating less heat, pad wear, and brake dust.
How Does Braking Performance Compare?
Lower heat improves performance and part longevity. Third-party performance testing is ongoing, but Orbis’ preliminary testing shows the direct retrofit setup boosting performance by 13 percent at cost parity.
The ring-rotor design delivers carbon-ceramic performance at half the price (which is essentially steel-brake pricing), with four pistons easily doing the work of six on a conventional brake. Mass is also reduced by 50 percent and brake temperatures drop by 25 percent, compared with a conventional steel rotor/caliper design.
Lower Cost, Mass, and Rotational Moment of Inertia
NASA and Orbis say the novel high-performance brake rotors can be made of steel, oxygen-diffused titanium, or forged aluminum depending on performance requirements and of course, budget. Even in steel the rotor is designed to minimize mass (and hence rotational moment of inertia) while simultaneously reducing thermal expansion, stress, warping, or distortion experience under extreme heat generated from repeated hard braking from high speeds.
Lower Performance “Cool Brake” Option
A third configuration Orbis Brakes intends to offer essentially fits twin calipers at the 9-and-3 o’clock positions on the rotor (which is also where they go when an Orbis wheel-hub motor is fitted). This design is perfect for pairing with a one-axle Orbis wheel-hub-motor drivetrain—for example, the front of a Ram ProMaster upfitted with the forthcoming $9,500 Orbis rear e-axle setup, which allows the vehicle to use matching wheels while greatly extending brake service life, as this design prioritizes efficiency and low brake-pad wear.
Particulate Emissions Benefit
Our former partners at Emissions Analytics have noted that “(tire and) braking particles will be the primary form of pollution from automobiles by 2030,” greatly exceeding whatever comes out of a car’s exhaust. We previously reported on Brembo rotor-finishing technology aimed at reducing dust, but research suggests keeping brake temperatures at or below the range of 350-375 degrees F dramatically reduces production of brake-dust particles. Such emissions apparently increase 10,000-fold above this temperature range, so cool brakes are the clean future.
How Much?
Orbis CEO Marcus Hays expects to enter production in the fall of 2022 with retrofit kits for many sport and GT cars, starting with both conventional and ring-rotor retrofits for the Tesla Model S Plaid. Pricing for the full wheel setup has yet to be announced, but MotorTrend has been assured it should undercut the price of a comparable carbon-ceramic brake upgrade on the market. The target price for a pair of conventional front rotors to fit the Tesla is $1,500. They’re designed to work with the stock calipers and pads, using spacers to account for the thinner rotors.
We look forward to quantifying these brakes’ improvement in stopping distance, pedal feel, and fade, both at the dragstrip and on a handling circuit very soon. Check out orbisbrakes.com and orbisdriven.com for more information.
Keyword: NASA and Orbis Engineer Brakes Cool Enough for the Tesla Model S Plaid