In racing design, important and urgent problems have to be solved: on one hand an high level of optimization of shapes and weights is needed for achieving high performance, on the other hand a quick development time is necessary to reduce the time between the new concept and the actual application on racing car as many redesigns are carried out during racing season.
In the present paper, a quick design strategy for the brake disc mounting bell is proposed in order to reduce the development time and to reach an high accuracy for improving car performance. The brake disc mounting bell is a poorly studied component, but it has important side effects on the handling and the efficiency of a racing car.
The proposed design strategy is developed by means of thermal and static finite element analysis (FEA). The component needs not only a great reduction in weight and rotational inertia but also a great stiffness for obtaining short reaction time in braking system and improving system durability.
Many modeling approaches have been considered for obtaining the shortest analyzing time and, as a consequence, a modular modeling strategy is proposed. An other important aspect of racing design is the difficulty to define the boundary conditions; a deep investigation on this subject is also conducted. In particular, an experimental campaign is designed to obtain useful data from racing car tests.
With the proposed design methodology the match between experimental data and FE model results and the choice of a modular model allow to achieve a lighter and stiffer brake bell and to reduce its development time.