Brakes are designed to slow down your automobile. The common misconception is that brakes squeeze against a brake drum or brake disc and the pressure of the squeezing action is what slows down the car or truck. This in fact is only part of the reason the vehicle slows down. Brakes are essentially a mechanism to change energy types. When you're driving your vehicle has kinetic energy. When you apply the brakes, the brake pads or brake shoes that press against the brake drum or brake rotor converting that energy into thermal energy via friction. The cooling of the brakes dissipates the heat and the vehicle slows down. This is all to do with The First Law of Thermodynamics, sometimes known as the law of conservation of energy. This states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. In the case of automobile brakes, it is converted from kinetic energy to thermal energy. Angular force. Because of the configuration of the brake pads and rotor in a disc brake, the location of the point of contact where the friction is generated also provides a mechanical moment to resist the turning motion of the brake rotor.
The two types of brakes are drum brakes and disc brakes. In essence, a drum braking system works by pressing brake shoes outward against the inside of a round metal drum. Disc brakes, on the other hand, use brake pads to squeeze a spinning metal disc in order to slow and stop your vehicle. Drum brakes are becoming less common and today generally only show up on the rear half of some domestic vehicles, including economy cars, mini-vans, and light trucks. They operate on the same principle as the more prominent disc brakes utilizing friction.
