brake failure vs breakdown

brake failure and breakdown both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
brake failure	Yes	No	No	No
breakdown	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, breakdown is a hypernym of brake failure; that is, breakdown is a word with a broader meaning than brake failure:

Other hypernyms of brake failure include equipment failure.

brake failure (noun)	breakdown (noun)
brakes fail to stop a vehicle	the act of disrupting an established order so it fails to continue
	an analysis into mutually exclusive categories
	a cessation of normal operation
	(biology) the process of decay caused by bacterial or fungal action
	(chemistry) separation of a substance into two or more substances that may differ from each other and from the original substance
	a mental or physical breakdown