3D quasi-transient thermo-mechanical analysis for vehicle brake disc

An alternative numerical method is developed to predict the thermo-mechanical behavior of brake disc during braking. Steady-state aerodynamic simulation for entire vehicle with variant speeds are conducted to analyze the convective heat transfer characteristic of the disc surface. Then the transient heat transfer boundary of the disc is obtained by interpolating the steady-state simulation results. Based on that, the transient thermo-mechanical coupled simulation for brake disc is performed via finite element method. With those work, the characteristics of transient temperature field and stress field of the brake disc are analyzed. Meanwhile, the characteristic of contact pressure distribution on friction interface is also obtained. The results show that during the braking process, for any node in the friction areas of the brake disc surface, its temperature rise curve fluctuates like a sawtooth. The temperature field has a significant effect on the stress field of the brake disc, both in distribution and variation. To verify the numerical method and validate the simulation results, a full-scale vehicle brake-thermal-performance test is carried out. By comparison, the simulation results show good agreement with the experimental results. The proposed numerical method enables an efficient and economical way to predict and evaluate the thermo-mechanical behavior of the brake disc in early phase of vehicle development.