A Study of Effects of Brake Contact Interfaces on Brake Squeal

Brake squeal is caused by the friction-induced vibration at the rotor/pad interfaces (primary contact interfaces) in a disc brake system. While there have been numerous research work evaluating the influence of primary contact interfaces on brake squeal, few studies can be found on the effect of the secondary contact interfaces, i.e., outer pad/caliper fingers, inner pad/pistons and pad/abutment, which can also significantly affect brake squeal based on our various dynamometer and vehicle tests. It is therefore the objective of this paper to investigate both the primary and the secondary contact interfaces and their influence on brake squeal. Simplified analytical models are created to gain insight into the stability of the brake system under low and high brake pressure; non-linear FEA analysis is employed for parametric study and countermeasure development; dynamometer and vehicle tests are used for verification. Case studies on low frequency squeal under low pressure and high frequency squeal at high pressure are presented.