Investigation of Friction Temperature in Railway Disc Brake

Abstract

The distribution of temperature on the rubbing surface is an important factor influencing the lifetime of a brake disc. With a copper-base sintered brake pad and a forge steel disc, up-to-brake experiments have been conducted on a full-scale test bench at a highest speed of 200 Km/h and a maximum braking force of 22.5 KN. The temperature distributions on brake disc surface have been acquired by an infrared thermal camera, and the contact pressure on the contact surface of the friction pair has been calculated by the finite element software ABAQUS. The results show that the area and thermal gradient of the hot bands increase with the increase of braking speed and braking force. The hot bands occur in priority at the radial location of r=200 mm and r=300 mm, and move radially in the braking process. The finite element modelling calculation indicates that the distribution of the contact pressure on the disc surface in radial direction is in a "U"-shape. The maximum contact pressure occur at the radial locations of r=200 mm and r=300 mm, and the minimum contact pressure occur in the vicinity of the mean radius of the disc. The conformity of contact pressure distributions with the practical temperature evolutions indicates that the non-uniform distribution of the contact pressure is the factor resulting in the appearance of hot bands on the disc surface.