Performance Charts: A Complete Analysis of Heavy Vehicle Braking Performance

The aim of this paper is introduce an original and innovative technique called performance charts to obtain the performance of heavy vehicles during braking process.

Several performance charts are shown for an example heavy vehicle and are discussed the results obtained, that include values of stopping distance, maximum and average deceleration, efficiency and others obtained during the braking process of the example vehicle.

As well is shown the importance of the application of this technique on the braking system definition process of heavy vehicles, on the orientation of the users of these vehicles or fleet-owner and on the verification of legal requirements established by regulations of braking performance of these vehicles.