Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Survey of the Causes of Brake Failure in Commercial Mini-buses in Kumasi
1Prince Owusu-Ansah, 1Timothy Alhassan, 1Alex Frimpong and 2A. Agyei Agyemang
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kumasi Polytechnic, P.O. Box 854, Kumasi, Ghana
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2014 23:4877-4882
Received: November 20, 2013 | Accepted: November 30, 2013 | Published: June 20, 2014
Abstract
This paper studies the causes of brake failure in commercial mini-buses in Kumasi, Ghana. A structured questionnaire was administered at (20) bus terminals, (65) automotive workshops and (25) government institutions. The researcher met the personnel in charge of these institutions and explained the objectives of the research. The questionnaire was left with the authorities overseeing these institutions and the response was collected at a later date. In all a total of (485) people were surveyed. The results and responses suggested that the main causes of brake failure in mini-buses are: Overheating of the brake assembly due to prolong application of the brakes, low brake fluid level as a result of defective rubber seals in the master cylinder and air trapped in the braking system resulting in spongy brakes and reducing braking efficiency. The survey results showed that brake failure in commercial mini-buses is caused mainly by Overheating of the brake assembly due to prolong application of the brakes. The survey responses suggest that the braking system should be inspected and serviced periodically in order to minimize the rate of brake failure in mini-buses.
Keywords:
Brake failure, brakes, braking efficiency, master cylinder,
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PMid:11012435
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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