Thermal Analysis of a Rear Drum Brake for Lightweight Passenger Vehicles

This paper presents a thermal analysis of a sub-set drum/shoe brake lining of a braking system in a rear drum brake for a lightweight passenger vehicle with engines of up to 1,000 cc, for a future application to hybrid power trains. In academic databases, as well as free research database, it is difficult to find papers and even technical works which show the complete cycle of the design of an automotive braking system. It occurs mostly due to the confidentiality of industries and industrial parts suppliers, once the brake system is a product of high added value. In this study, transient temperature field distributions of the shoe lining were obtained by numerical simulations. Boundary conditions of the model were calculated according to a reference paper. The geometry and mechanical and thermal properties of the brake shoe lining were obtained from data provided by the manufacturer. Numerical results show the transient temperature filed in the lining during different types of braking processes, such as once emergency braking, continuous downhill braking and repetitive braking, which are developed by the vehicle in urban situations. The maximum temperature reached on the lining surface was 375.64 °C for the continuous downhill braking case after 200 s of braking at 60 km/h, considering a 10% slope.