Investigation on thermal analysis of disc brake using Autodesk Fusion 360

Abstract

Disk brakes are one of the important components in automotive engineering and the material selection for the manufacturing of brake rotors is highly crucial when it comes to the emergency or catastrophe it should withstand the wear and tear, marks the success of the product with the lifetime customer satisfaction. When the brakes are applied a large amount of heat is conveyed on the disk rotors and heat dissipation is based on the material. In this study, three different designs with 40, 64 and 160 drilled holes will be made in the brake rotor and a comparative study has been made between these designs to select the best design. The materials are being selected with their efficient characteristics and designed with the good guidance of it. Thermal analysis is performed with the fusion 360 software with three different materials of the best design obtained from the previous study and simulation performed to determine the heat flux and temperature distribution. The metals which are under consideration are Grey Cast Iron, Aluminium 6061, and stainless steel AISI 430 (SS AISI 430). Based on the results from this study, the candidate material Aluminium 6061 is a superior in various thermal properties (higher heat flux) compare to the other materials (Gray Cast Iron and SS AISI 430) selected in this study for the disc brake and in terms of temperature distribution the material Grey Cast Iron has the highest temperature drop.