Braking Calipers
For the Washington Hyperloop team, I designed the braking caliper structure to stop the pod on the track. The system was validated to sustain 6G’s of deceleration loads of a 150kg pod.
The piston is actuated pneumatically at 150 psi, so excellent sealing is required. I meticulously machined the bore to a size tolerance of ±0.0002″ (± 5 microns).
The main challenge of this design was the fastener validation of the superposed load cases. The fasteners had to endure braking loads and piston pressure loads, both in shear and tension. The hand calculations are completed below.
