Thermal Stress Distribution In Brake Disc For Small Vehicle

Brake system is one of the crucial systems in automobile industry. The contact
surface between brake disc and pad during braking period will increase the temperature
thus initiate thermal stress. As temperature increase, thermal stress will increase and
excessive thermal stress can cause undesirable effect on the material of brake disc that
eventually lead to initiation of crack. This analysis is done to investigate the thermal
stress distribution in brake disc for small vehicle when it is subjected to severe braking
condition. The vehicle that has maximum load and moving at 160km/h will require
stopping with high deceleration at 0.5g. The analysis is done by simulating the
temperature distribution and thermal stress distribution using finite element approach in
ANSYS simulation program. The amount of frictional heat flux calculated in the dynamic
and energy analysis will be applied as input for the temperature distribution analysis. The
result of temperature distribution will be applied as input in structural analysis to get the
thermal stress distribution. The simulation gives the highest temperature of 195.57 °C at
the middle of braking period which is 2.28 seconds. The maximum thermal stress of
403.24 MPa achieved at 3.30 seconds after braking started.