Coalescence of natural frequencies among different brake components is one of the main causes for squeal noise appearance under some specific operating conditions. Many publications have dealt with the study of squealing under different situations. However, in most cases this knowledge has not been transferred to the companies by means of easy to use software.
This paper is focused on the development of a practical tool to provide brake pad manufacturers with an instrument to reduce the probability to suffer squeal noises at the design stage of the product. It can also be used as a problem solving tool to interactively find the optimum design to a specific problem.
The proposed tool is based on different computational (FEA), mathematical (DOE, Neural Networks) and experimental (Experimental Modal Analyses) methods that are combined together to distil a single tool that permits to evaluate in a few seconds how a natural frequency of a given pad varies when any design parameter is altered.