Found this on a motorcycle website. There is a company called galfer that makes the wave rotors for motorcycles, in this explanation i could see where this would apply in the larger scale car rotors.
“So what's the big deal? Why upgrade to Wave Rotors? Galfer Wave Rotors utilize the entire brake pad surface to maximize stopping power. In testing their rotors & combined with Braided Lines, Galfer achieved stopping power 30% greater than stock disk designs.
How is that possible? When you grab a fistful of front brake, the moment of initial bite is when maximum grip is generated. However, the more you brake, the less grip your braking system will have. Galfer Wave Rotors focus exclusively on this moment of inital bite to generate brute force brake power.
The shape of the waves are engineered in such a way to enable the disc to provide constant new braking surface while the brake pad is trying to establish that bite as the disc is rotating!
Galfer Wave Rotors also offer improved heat dissipatation characteristics. As the disks heat up, your pads can lose their grip. This is because the heat generated from constant braking can glaze the pads. If the rotors heat up enough, they can burn off the pads (been there, done that!), or worse yet- expand the metal beyond its design tolerances. Equals warped rotors.
Galfer's rotors have a wave design that maximizes initial bite plus continues to provide a fresh bite of the disk as it rotates!”
