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Cryogenics (getting really cold)
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Although cryogenics may sound mysterious and you may have heard stories of the process being “snake oil”, it does work, if applied in the right manner. Cryogenic processing of metal has been around for a long time in one form or another from simple freezing of materials from natural sources like the weather or travel into space where absolute zero is reached (-459 deg Fahrenheit) to recent attempts to use the process commercially using specially designed freezers and liquid nitrogen to reach temperatures around -300 deg F. There have been and still are several research programs that are centered on the use of cryogenic processing of materials to improve wear ability, conductivity of heat and electrical current and improvement of tensile strength.
Command Automotive, Inc. realized that this process could be useful in developing sever duty brake rotors. Our early attempts at using the process on rotors bought off of the shelf were not acceptable because of inconsistency in product performance. After much testing it was determined that we needed to get control of the metal content and freeze to a known standard metallurgy. We also discovered that the metal content itself was of extreme importance. It is obvious that different elements react to the process in different ways. We use metal that is high quality and does not have many of the impurities that are found in most brake rotors. This alone is of great importance in the success of the SD-1 brake rotor….but not all. The process that we use has been refined to compliment the metallurgy that is used in every single rotor that we manufacture. |
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