Coupled temperature-displacement modeling to study the thermo-elastic instability in disc brakes

Abstract

Macroscopic hot spots formed due to the large thermal gradients at the surface of the disc brake rotor, make the rotor to fail or wear out early. Thermo-elastic deformation results in contact concentration, leading to the non uniform distribution of temperature making the disc susceptible to hot spot formation. The formation of one hot spot event will predispose the system to future hot spotting at the same location. This leads to the complete thermo-elastic instability in the disc brakes; multitude parameters are responsible for the thermo elastic instability. The predominant factor is the sliding velocity and above a certain sliding velocity the instability of the brake system occurs and hot spots is formed in the surface of the disc brake. Commercial finite element package ABAQUS(R) is used to find the temperature distribution and the result is validated using Rowson's analytical model. A coupled analysis methodology is evolved for the automotive disc brake from the transient thermo-elastic contact analysis. Temperature variation is studied under different sliding speeds within the operation range.