Evaluation of Thermo-Mechanical behavior of brake discs in vehicles using Multidisciplinary approach

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the thermal performance of the brake discs in the design stage of its life cycle by developing a methodology to replicate the dynamometer testing using multi-disciplinary Finite Element Analysis (FEA) methods. A simulation workflow was formulated in which Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to create temperature and velocity dependent Heat Transfer Coefficients (HTC) which were in turn used in Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) to do a thermo-mechanical analysis. With this workflow various designs of the brake discs were analyzed. A sensitivity study was done to determine critical design features that affected its thermal performance. A final design was fixed that met both the weight and thermal performance targets. This design was evaluated in dynamometer testing, and 95% correlation was achieved. Thus, the developed simulation workflow ensured that a first-time right brake disc can be finalized in the design stage, which will meet the performance in dynamometer testing.