Structural Analysis of Automotive Brake Drums

An investigation has been undertaken of the distortion and stresses in brake drums due to applied loads. The analytical technique employs the thin-shell theory due to V. V. Novozhilov in an orthotropic shell-of-revolution computer program by means of which the governing differential equations are solved with finite-difference mathematics. Analytically-predicted results for drum response are given for several loading conditions, and deflections are shown to be in good agreement with experimental results in one particular laboratory test loading configuration. Application can be expected to problems of brake drum design and drum materials substitution.