Traveling Waves in Squealing Disc Brakes Measured with Acoustic Holography

Disc brake squeal can be a major problem during development of new brake systems. Squeal can be loud and persistent or fugitive but nevertheless annoying. Increasing the knowledge of the mechanisms generating squeal is one important contribution to the extensive research and development work being performed in order to solve the problems. The vibration motions of the brake components during squeal, especially the disc, have been studied intensively, and the existence of standing or traveling waves and the direction of such waves have been debated. Several measurement techniques have been employed in order to reveal the nature of the disc motion, including holography, scanning laser vibrometry and rowing accelerometers in the disc. Also acoustic holography has been employed previously - see for example [2] - but this paper documents the ability of acoustic holography to create new knowledge about disc brake squeal through measurement of the disc motion. Not only the vibration pattern can be measured, but also the existence and direction of traveling waves in squealing disc brakes can be recognized. At the same time acoustic holography reveals some interesting characteristics in the wave propagation of the squealing brake disc not previously reported. This discovery was made possible by the ability of acoustic holography to measure short transient events with a high resolution both in time and space.