CAXIAS DO SUL, Brazil — Frasle Mobility has developed braking and track components for the Brazilian Army’s Leopard 1A5BR armored vehicle.
Within this program, the company has invested in new manufacturing process technologies. Throughout the second half of 2023, Frasle will continue to advance the development of parts in the evolution of the project.
Mobilized by the challenge of finding solutions for the fleet of armored combat vehicles, including the German-origin Leopard, the research, development and innovation teams of the Fras-le, Fremax and Controil brands worked on discs and pads for the brake system and retaining rings for wheel hubs and track pads – which are the tracks that help move the tank.
The difference between these components in relation to products with civil commercial applications is their better performance in conditions of higher temperatures and greater energy required in the braking and vehicle movement processes.
“The choice of raw materials and design of the pieces considered these specificities and also served to add new manufacturing processes to our daily lives.” explained Alexandre Casaril, the director of engineering and OEM sales at Frasle Mobility. “In particular for braking components, we started to adopt a process called sintering, in which we shape the parts through high-pressure cold pressing and densification in a controlled atmosphere oven, which is a different technology than what we use in commercial road products, where the insert pressing process is based on temperature.”
Enabling a new component manufacturing process may, in the future, generate other commercial applications, such as in lines of motorcycle parts, for example.
“The permanent development of new solutions is at the essence of the company, and gains even more relevance with this initiative, contributing to national sovereignty and to the strengthening and competitiveness of Brazilian industry, in an important partnership between public authorities and the private sector,” emphasized Anderson Pontalti, the COO of Frasle Mobility.
With more than a year and a half of evolution, the development of the project had the participation of researchers from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and the validation of the prototypes was supported by the Randon Technological Center (CTR).
