Component Testing and Materials Properties of Ductile Iron Brake Anchors

During product development and production, product testing is often desirable to improve design robustness and verify consistent product performance. However, product testing is very complicated, requires highly specialized and trained personnel and utilizes expensive, dedicated equipment and facilities.

This paper describes two brake anchor component tests (pull and impact) and the use of strain gaged components to determine the characteristics of the component during loading. Data for two brake anchor designs are presented and the component properties are then correlated with material properties and design. The combined effect of material properties and component design on performance is demonstrated. The data also demonstrates that apparently identical tests on different component designs can lead to misleading conclusions.