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DOI 10.1007/s12008-017-0394-z
ORIGINAL PAPER
Abstract Braking system is one of the important control ers commonly exploit elastic components to store energy in
systems of an automotive. For many years, the disc brakes mechanical systems [1]. The design of machines imposes
have been used in automobiles for the safe retarding of the the dimensioning of numerous common mechanical com-
vehicles. During the braking enormous amount of heat will ponents. These components have their own dimensioning
be generated and for effective braking sufficient heat dissi- rules and require specific manufacturing knowledge [2]. The
pation is essential. The thermal performance of disc brake brake system has always been one of the most critical active
depends upon the characteristics of the airflow around the safety systems. Brake cooling is further an important aspect
brake rotor and hence the aerodynamics is an important in to consider for brake disc durability and performance. Much
the region of brake components. A CFD analysis is carried progress has been made using different numerical and exper-
out on the braking system as a case study to make out the imental approaches. However, brake performance still needs
behaviour of airflow distribution around the disc brake com- much work to carry out. This is due to the fact that disc
ponents using ANSYS CFX software. We are interested in brake performance strongly depending on many parame-
the determination of the heat transfer coefficient on each sur- ters including materials and geometry of brake components,
face of a ventilated disc rotor varying with time in a transient component interaction, many operating and environmental
state using CFD analysis, and then imported the surface film conditions. The need for a new method to find out the contri-
condition data into a corresponding FEM model for disc tem- butions of the operation, environmental conditions, structural
perature analysis. modifications and their interactions is required. One of the
earliest researchers who attempted to integrate experimental
Keywords CFD Heat flux Convection Heat transfer or numerical approaches in design of experiments (DOE) to
coefficient Gray cast iron Full disc Ventilated disc assess effectively the contributions of different parameters
and their interaction. The importance of convective cooling
of a brake disc is an important factor since it can be signif-
1 Introduction icantly improved by trivial design changes and contributes
to the major part of the total dissipated heat flux for normal
The ever increasing need of effective transportations puts driving conditions. The braking system represents one of the
automobile manufacturers in a non-avoidable situation of most fundamental safety-critical components in modern pas-
maintaining and improvement of safety systems. Design- senger cars. Therefore, the braking system of a vehicle is
undeniably important, especially in slowing or stopping the
B Ali Belhocine rotation of a wheel by pressing brake pads against rotating
belho2017@gmail.com wheel discs [3].
1 A common technique to improve the brake cooling is using
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of
Sciences and the Technology of Oran, USTO, L.P 1505 a ventilated brake disc. It improves the convective cooling by
El -MNAOUER, 31000 Oran, Algeria means of the air passages separating the braking surfaces. For
2 Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi years, ventilated brake rotors have been used for their weight
Malaysia, UTM, 81310 Skudai, Malaysia savings and additional convective heat transfer from the air
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channels between the rotor hub cheeks (passages lacking in and Hassan et al. [22] employed the finite element approach
solid rotors). However, the amount of additional cooling due to investigate the thermal effects on disc brake squeal using
to this internal air flow is not well defined and depends on dynamic transient and complex eigenvalue analysis, respec-
the individual brake rotor geometry and the cooling air flow tively. The braking system is the single most important safety
conditions around the brake assembly. Therefore flow anal- feature of every vehicle on the road. The ability of the brak-
ysis and heat dissipation have fascinated many researchers. ing system to bring a vehicle to a safe controlled stop is
Earlier work has addressed both aerodynamic [4,5,7,8,11] absolutely essential in preventing accidental vehicle dam-
and heat transfer [6,7,9,10] aspects of ventilated and solid age and personal injury. The braking system is composed of
discs. many parts, including friction pads on each wheel, a mas-
The investigation of the localized thermal phenomena ter cylinder, wheel cylinders, and a hydraulic control system
such as hot spotting and hot banding [12,13] requires a fully [23]. A disc brake consists of a cast-iron disc,which rotates
coupled thermo-elastic analysis and thus, it is beyond the with the wheel, a caliper, fixed to the steering knuckle, and
scope of the current study. This separate work is under- friction material (brake pads). When the braking process
way to include the localized thermal effects in the proposed occurs, the hydraulic pressure forces the piston and there-
design process and will be reported in the future. Braking fore the pads and disc brake are in sliding contact. Set up
performance of a vehicle can significantly be affected by force resists the movement and the vehicle slows down or
the temperature rise in the brake components. The frictional eventually stops. Friction between the disc and pads always
heat generated at the interface of the disc and the pads can opposes the motion and the heat is generated due to the con-
cause a high temperature. Particularly, the temperature may version of the kinetic energy [24]. The three-dimensional
exceed the critical value for a given material, which leads to simulation of thermo-mechanical interactions on the auto-
undesirable effects, such as brake fade, local scoring, thermo- motive brake, showing the transient thermo-elastic instability
elastic instability, premature wear, brake fluid vaporization, phenomenon, is presented for the first time in this academic
bearing failure, thermal cracks, and thermally excited vibra- community [25].
tion [14]. Recently, Belhocine and Wan Omar [26] investigated the
Dufrnoy [15] proposed a structural macro model of the structural and mechanical behavior of a three-dimensional
thermo mechanical behaviour of the disc brake, taking into discpad model during the braking process under dry con-
account the real three-dimensional geometry of the discpad tacts slipping conditions. After that, Belhocine [27] investi-
couple. Contact surface variations, distortions and wear are gated the structural and contact behaviors of the brake disc
taken into account. Formation of hot spots, as well as non- and pads during the braking phase with and without thermal
uniform distribution of the contact pressure is an unwanted effects.
effect emerging in disc brakes in the course of braking or dur- When a vehicle brake, a part of the temperature gener-
ing engagement of a transmission clutch. In work carried out ated by friction escapes into the air through convection and
by Sderberg and Andersson [16], a three-dimensional finite radiation. Therefore, the determination of heat transfer coef-
element model of the brake pad and the rotor were developed ficients is very important. It is, however, very difficult to
primarily for the calculations of the contact pressure distri- calculate them precisely because they depend on the shape
bution of the pad onto the rotor. If the sliding velocity is high of the braking system, the speed of movement of the vehicle,
enough, this effect can become unstable and can result in disc and consequently on the air circulation. Here the modeling
material damage, frictional vibration, wear, etc. [17]. Gao of convection proves to be the main problem because it is
and Lin [18] stated that there is considerable evidence that related to the aerodynamic conditions of the disc.
shows the contact temperature is an integral factor reflecting Visualization of complex results from computational fluid
the specific power friction influence of the combined effect dynamics (CFD) simulation has become a very active field
of load, speed, friction coefficient, and the thermo physi- of research. With increasing computational power of com-
cal and durability properties of the materials of a frictional puting systems, both the frequency of CFD simulation being
couple. Lee and Yeo [19] reported that uneven distribution used as well as the complexity of the calculations (and con-
of temperature at the surfaces of the disc and friction pads sequently also the complexity of the results) has increased.
brings about thermal distortion, which is known as coning A virtual engineering application of CFDbased interactive
and found to be the main cause of Judder and disc thick- design is used to motivate the research as well as to evalu-
ness variation (DTV). Ouyang et al. [20] in their recent work ate the performance of the system. The sample application is
found that temperature could also affect the vibration level in related to the automotive braking system. The importance of
a disc brake assembly. Belhocine and Nouby [21] developed convective cooling of a brake disc is an important factor since
a finite element model of the disc brake assembly in order to it can be significantly improved by trivial design changes and
improve understanding of the influence of Youngs modulus contributes to the major part of the total dissipated heat flux
on squeal generation. In a recent work, Ouyang et al. [20] for normal driving conditions.
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In this work, we are interested in this part of the calculation The generated heat is distributed between the rotor and the
of the heat exchange coefficient (h). This parameter must be pads. This partition between pads and disc depends highly on
evaluated to visualize the three-dimensional distribution of the physicalchemical properties of the two materials. Over
the temperature of the disc. The strategy of calculation is 95% of this thermal energy flows into the rotor and is stored,
based on the software ANSYS CFX 11 which the numerical conducted to the hub and the wheel, and for longer brake
simulation of the transient thermal field is carried out by using applications convected to the surrounding air.
ANSYS [28]. In other words, the aim of the present work is
to investigate the thermal response of such a cast iron brake
disc using the finite element (FE) method. A comparison was
3 Brake disc types
made between the temperature of a full and ventilated brake
disc showing the importance of cooling mode in the design
There are two types of discs: full discs and ventilated discs.
of automobile discs.
The full discs, of simple geometry and therefore of simple
manufacture, are generally placed on the rear axle of the
car. They consist simply of a solid crown connected to a
2 Principle of disc brakes bowl which is fixed to the hub of the car (Fig. 2a). Venti-
lated discs of more complex geometry appeared later. They
The principle of a disc brake is very simple: A metal disc, are mostly on the front axle. However, they are increasingly
the rotor, is firmly mounted to the rotating wheel. The pads in the rear and front of the high-end cars. They are composed
grip the rotating disc when the brakes are applied. The disc of two crownscalled flangesseparated by fins (Fig. 2b),
brake system consists of the following parts (see Fig. 1): they cool better than full discs thanks to ventilation between
the fins, which in addition promote convective heat transfer
The padstwo flat elements made of friction material. by increasing the exchange surface. The ventilated disc has
They run perpendicular to the disc and grip it when a more material than the full disc; its heat absorption capacity
brake force is applied. is therefore better. The number, size and shape (radial fins,
The rubbing on the moving disc surface causes it to slow curves, circular pins, etc.) of the fins are variable.
down. The gradients in the throat of the bowl are explained in the
The caliperwhich contains a piston that presses the same way. At the beginning of braking, the temperature of
pads against the disc surface. The caliper is mounted to the bowl is at 20 C while that of the tracks is a few hundred
the chassis. degrees. In addition, in order to prevent the hub temperature
The rotorwhich is mounted to the hub and is therefore from being too high (which would cause tire temperature
rotating with the wheel. increases, which is very critical of its behavior), the throat
is machined so as not to transmit too much heat to the hub
The vehicle in motion can be considered as a permanent
energy conversion system: Chemical energy is transformed
through combustion into mechanical energy. This energy
is then transformed into kinetic or potential energy of a
car. When braking, the vehicles kinetic energy is entirely
converted into thermal energy by the frictional interaction
between brake pads and the rotor.
Fig. 1 Parts of the brake system Fig. 2 Full disc (a) and Ventilated disc (b)
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qx q y qz T
+ + Qc d xd ydz = 0 (2)
x y z t
Calorific throat
The heat fluxes in the x, y and z directions are:
qx = k Tx
q y = k Ty (3)
Fig. 3 Calorific throat qz = k zT
T T T
k + k + k
x x y y z z
T
+Qc d xd ydz = 0 (4)
t
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Ptot = PR + PF (16)
PF = FF v = (FFV + FFH ) v (17)
PR = FR v = (FRR + FRP + FRA ) v (18)
FF = FFV + FFH The braking power delivered to the brake disc is equal to
F = FRRV + FRRH half the total power:
RR
a 2
FRA = C X A F v (15)
2
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55
50
45
40
35
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Temperature C
Table 2 Thermoelastic properties used in the simulation All kinetic energy at the disc brake rotor surface is con-
Material properties Disc verted into frictional heat or heat flux.
The heat transfer is involved in this analysis only conduc-
Thermal conductivity, k (W/m C) 57 tion and convection process. This heat transfer radiation
Density, (kg/m3 ) 7250 can be neglected in this analysis because of the small
Specific heat, c (J/Kg C) 460 amount which is 510% [33].
Poissons ratio, v 0.28 The disc material is considered as homogeneous and
Thermal expansion, (106 / C) 10.85 isotropic.
Elastic modulus, E (GPa) 138 The domain is considered as axis-symmetric.
Inertia and body force effects are negligible during the
analysis.
thermo-elastic characteristics adopted in this simulation in The disc is stress free before the application of the brake.
the transient analysis of the disc are listed in Table 2 . It In this analysis, the ambient temperature and initial tem-
is very difficult to exactly model the brake disc, in which perature have been set to 20 C.
there are still researches are going on to find out the transient All other possible disc brake loads are neglected.
thermal behavior of disc brake during braking applications. Only certain parts of the disc brake rotor will apply with
There is always a need of some assumptions to model any convection heat transfer such as cooling vanes area, outer
complex geometry. These assumptions are made, keeping ring diameter area and disc brake surface.
in mind the difficulties involved in the theoretical calcula-
tion and the importance of the parameters that are taken and
those which are ignored. In modeling, we always ignore the The thermal conductivity and specific heat are a function
things that are of less importance and have little impact on of temperature, Figs. 10 and 11.
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DR1
DSYM1
DV1
Interface
Entry 1 Fluid-solid
of the air
Fig. 18 Distribution of heat transfer coefficient on a full disc in the
Entry 2 steady state case (FG 15)
of the air
Outlet
Air at
20 C
Disc
Fig. 19 Distribution of heat-transfer coefficient on a ventilated disc in
the stationary case (FG 25 AL)
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-2
surfaces in the stationary case SC2
100 SC3
for a full disc (FG 15) 90 SC4
SC1 25.29168 80 SF1
70 SF3
SC2 5.18003 ST2
60 ST3
SC3 2.922075 50 ST4
40 SV1
SC4 11.77396 SV2
30 SV3
SF1 111.20765 20 SV4
10
SF3 53.15547 0
ST2 23.22845 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
-1
SC1
225 SC2
SV4 65.82545
-2
200 SC3
SF1
175 SF3
SPV1
Table 4 Value of the heat transfer coefficient of different surfaces in 150 SPV2
SPV3
the stationary case of a ventilated disc (FG 25 AL, FG 20 and FG 15) 125 SPV4
ST1
100 ST2
Matriau G 25 AL FG 20 FG 15 ST3
75 ST4
Surface hmoy = [W/m2 k] SV1
50 SV2
SV3
SC1 54.16235 53.926035 53.8749 25 SV4
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Fig. 24 Variation of the heat transfer coefficient (h) on the surface Fig. 25 Variation of the heat transfer coefficient (h) on the surface
(SPV2) and as a function of time for a ventilated disc (FG 15) (SV1) and Function of time for a ventilated disc (FG 15)
10
8 Meshing details
0
The goal of meshing in the Workbench is to provide robust,
0 10 20 30 40
easy to use meshing tools that will simplify the mesh genera- Time [s]
tion process. The used model must be divided into a number
of small pieces known as finite elements. Since the model is Fig. 26 Stop braking load
divided into a number of discrete parts, in carring out a finite
element analysis. The meshing was refined near the contact
area in order to obtain more accurate results [37]. A finite simulation of the all (permanent or transitory), and by defin-
element mesh model generated is shown in Fig. 28. ing the physical properties of materials. These conditions
constitute the initial conditions of our simulation. The pre-
processor is an interactive model builder to prepare the FE
9 Thermal boundary conditions (finite element) model and input data. The solution phase
utilizes the input data developed by the pre processor, and
The boundary conditions are introduced into module ANSYS prepares the solution according to the problem definition. It
Workbench [Multiphysics], by choosing the mode of the first creates input files to the temperature on the screen in the form
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5x10 6
Heat Flux
4x10 6
Heat Flux [W m -2]
3x10 6
2x10 6
1x10 6
0
0 10 20 30 40
Time [s]
Fig. 28 FEA model mesh model for full disc and ventilated disc a
Full disc (172,103 nodes114,421 elements) b Ventilated disc (154,679
nodes94,117 elements)
10.1 Thermal analysis perature is high. FG 15 is differentiated from the two other
cast iron by smaller temperatures.
Figure 29 shows for each type of the selected cast iron (FG 25 For the full disc, the temperature reaches its maximum
Al, FG 20, FG 15), the temperature variation at the moment value of 401.55 C at the moment t = 1.8839 s, and then
when the temperature is maximized. According to Fig. 29 the it falls rapidly up to 4.9293 sas of this moment and up
cast iron FG 15 has the best thermal behavior (Fig. 30).More to the end (t = 45 s) of the simulation, the variation in the
the thermal conductivity of the material is low, more its tem- temperature becomes slow. It is noted that the interval [0
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shown that the ventilation system plays an important role of the disc and contact pressures of the pads increases as the
in cooling discs and provides a good high temperature resis- thermal stresses are additional to mechanical stress, which
tance. The analysis results showed that, temperature field and causes the crack propagation and fracture of the bowl and
stress field in the process of braking phase were fully coupled. wear of the disc and pads. Regarding the calculation results,
The temperature, Von Mises stress and the total deformations we can say that they are satisfactory commonly found in the
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