The Los Angeles City Traffic (LACT) brake test is well known acclaimed procedure used by many vehicle manufacturers to assess the brake pad wear behavior and to investigate the Noise, Vibration and Harness (NVH) performance of the brake system. The LACT driving route consists of a set of real-world driving conditions, which has been considered representative of the US passenger vehicle market.
The scope of this study is to mimic the LACT test using finite element analysis (FEA) to calculate the wear displacement based on Rhee’s theory. The Leading-edge and trailing edge of the brake pad’s wear tendency is also predicted from the simulation. The finite element model for wear simulation consists of brake system viz., Rotor, Knuckle, Pads, Anchor bracket, Piston, and Caliper. Various braking scenarios consist of different driving characteristics (Number of brake applications, vehicle speed, brake pressure, rotor temperature, and brake rotor interface friction variation) based on LACT Route traffics are replicated in FEA.
The wear displacement results from the finite element analysis are in good agreement with physical test results. Further, based on the wear displacement values, the brake pad’s life span is calculated and correlated well with the test measurements.
