The hydraulic brake products like brake calipers, master cylinders and boosters are the foundation of today complex vehicle brake systems. The state of the art application leads very often to an individual design, due to the fulfillment of customer requirements within the available installation space.
Also the enormous pressure on cost and time require optimized design processes.
Therefore Continental developed the product configuration software CoBra. Within this software tool, the engineering is able to react very fast on demands. Starting with the brake sizing parameters and the customer interface definition, CoBra supports the design engineer to select the necessary components and positioning them accordingly, considering the actual design standards.
The data based configuration software collects all necessary design parameters and provides an export to parametric CAD start up models. Therefore a high level of data quality can be achieved which allows to couple further design and simulation modules.
Today all caliper types and the master cylinders are part of the actual software version.
In summary we can state that CoBra, as the basis for the start of each caliper application, has a high impact on the standardization approach. The early integration of design rules, manufacturing standards and the attached CAD / CAE process reduces failure modes and gives the engineering more time to concentrate on the project specific optimizations.
