Three step simulation process for brake squeal analysis

In recent years complex eigenvalue analysis (CEA) has evolved into the major method to simulate brake squeal. The approach investigates the stability of the complete brake system. By definition the CEA is a linear analysis. However, a complete brake system behaves nonlinearly. The standard engineering approach to stability analyses of non-linear systems makes three steps necessary: (1) calculate in a non-linear analysis the static equilibrium of the system, (2) perform a linearization at this equilibrium point, (3) perform a linear CEA to investigate the system's stability. We apply this chain of simulation steps to brake systems and implement it in a continuous process, in which the result file of the non-linear static Finite Element (FE) analysis is read by an external program, which performs the linearization and directly creates the input deck for the FE stability analysis. The major advantage of our new procedure is that effects like pad wear, chamfers and slots in the lining material can be studied within an integrated simulation environment. The paper describes our simulation process and gives some examples demonstrating that the above mentioned effects influence the system's stability.