Brake system design is intended to reduce vehicle speed in a very short time by ensuring vehicle safety. In the event of successive braking, brake system absorbs most of vehicle’s kinetic energy in the form of heat energy, at the same time it dissipates heat energy to the surrounding. During this short span of time, brake disc surface and rotor attains the highest temperatures which may cross their material allowable temperature limit or functional requirement. High temperatures on rotor disc affects durability & thermal reliability of the brake rotor. Excessive temperature on brake rotors can induce brake fade, disc coning which may result in reduced braking efficiency.
To address the complex heat transfer and highly transient phenomenon during successive braking, numerical simulations can give more advantage than physical trials which helps to analyze complex 3D flow physics and heat dissipation from rotors in the vicinity of brake system. Deployment of brake thermal simulations in initial design stages can help in optimizing rotor design which in turn will improve brake system overall performance, reduced cost and weight.
In present work, two-way fully integrated coupling approach between two different environments (PowerFLOW) and (PowerTHERM) solver is used. Coupling of high quality data mapping and exchange between two solvers is performed automatically. Coupling approach helps to capture transient nature of brake rotor heating. Estimated heat load and predicted variable HTC’s for different speeds from flow solver(PowerFLOW) is used as an input for standalone thermal model (PowerTHERM) to predict temperature rise in brake rotors due to conduction and radiation. Solid mesh is used to capture rotor disc and different parts of brake system to model conduction accurately. For results validation AMS (Auto-Motor-Sport) test procedure for 10 duty cycle is simulated. The results of the simulation are compared with the test data and found in reasonable agreement at various events during braking cycles.