Design and analysis of brake disc assembly for an FSAE vehicle

Abstract

When it comes to driver’s safety, the quality of car’s braking system plays a crucial part. The objective of this paper is to design and fabricate a reliable brake disc assembly which is both structurally and thermally stable along with selecting suitable brake calipers for an FSAE vehicle. To enhance the vehicle performance, it is necessary to optimize and design a light weight brake disc assembly yet having high braking power, strength and rigidity. In order to achieve desirable results, parameters of assembly like effective diameter of brake disc, thickness of brake disc, heat flux, maximum temperature, fluid parameters, caliper specifications, design and arrangement of floaters, etc. are determined and calculated to have an optimized geometry. These values are determined on the basis of vehicle parameters such as overall weight, velocity of vehicle, braking time, kinetic energy of vehicle, static and dynamic weight distribution, height of center of gravity of vehicle, wheelbase, wheel diameter and coefficient of friction of tyres. Multiple simulations and topology optimizations are performed to finalize the material and corresponding manufacturing technique, so as to make assembly efficient and cost effective without compromising on strength.