Linköping Studies in Science and Technology.

Licentiate Thesis No. 1603

Simulation of Thermal Stresses in

a Brake Disc

Asim Rashid

LIU–TEK–LIC–2013:37

Department of Management and Engineering, Division of Mechanics

Linköping University, SE–581 83, Linköping, Sweden

Linköping, May 2013

Cover:
Temperature distribution on the disc surface after a brake application.

Printed by:
LiU-Tryck, Linköping, Sweden
ISBN 978-91-7519-575-9
ISSN 0280-7971

Distributed by:
Linköping University
Department of Management and Engineering
SE–581 83, Linköping, Sweden

c 2013 Asim Rashid

This document was prepared with LATEX, June 3, 2013

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or be

transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Preface

First of all I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Niclas

Strömberg, for his support and guidance. I am thankful to all the colleague at JTH
for a nice working environment. A special thanks to my former colleague, Magnus
Hofwing, for providing the relevant data to the project. I would also like to thank
Martin Tapankov for his helpful suggestions for solving Latex related issues and
recommending very useful softwares.
I am very grateful for the funding by Vinnova and Volvo 3P. I would also like to
express my gratitude to the people at Volvo 3P especially Magnus Levinsson and
Per Hasselberg for providing the relevant data and fruitful discussions. Another
thanks to Erik Holmberg at Linköping Universtiy for providing the Latex template
for this thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support and patience.

Asim Rashid
Jönköping, 2013-05-20

iii
Abstract

In this thesis thermal stresses in a brake disc during a braking operation are sim-
ulated. The simulations are performed by using a sequential approach where the
temperature history generated during a frictional heat analysis is used as an in-
put for the stress analysis. The frictional heat analysis is based on the Eulerian
method, which requires significantly lower computational time as compared to the
Lagrangian approach. The stress analysis is performed using a temperature depen-
dent material model both with isotropic and kinematic hardening behaviors. The
results predict the presence of residual tensile stresses in circumferential direction
for both hardening behaviors. These residual stresses may cause initiation of ra-
dial cracks on the disc surface after a few braking cycles. For repeated braking
an approximately stable stress-strain loop is obtained already after the first cycle
for the linear kinematic hardening model. So, if the fatigue life data for the disc
material is known, its fatigue life can be assessed. These results are in agreement
with experimental observations available in the literature.
The simulation results predict one hot band in the middle of the disc for a pad
with no wear history. It is also shown that convex bending of the pad is the major
cause of the contact pressure concentration in middle of the pad which results in
the appearance of a hot band on the disc surface. The results also show that due
to wear of the pad, different distributions of temperature on the disc surface are
obtained for each new brake cycle and after a few braking cycles, two hot bands
appear on the disc surface.
This sequential approach has proved tremendously cheap in terms of computa-
tional time so it gives the freedom to perform multi-objective optimization studies.
Preliminary results of such a study are also presented where the mass of the back
plate, the brake energy and the maximum temperature generated on the disc sur-
face during hard braking are optimized. The results indicate that a brake pad
with lowest possible stiffness will result in an optimized solution with regards to all
three objectives. Another interesting result is the trend of decrease in maximum
temperature with an increase in back plate thickness.
Finally an overview of disc brakes and related phenomena is presented as a litera-
ture review.

v
List of Papers

This thesis is based on the following five papers:

I. An Efficient Sequential Approach for Simulation of Thermal Stresses in Disc

Brakes
II. Sequential Simulation of Thermal Stresses in Disc Brakes for Repeated Brak-
ing
III. Thermomechanical Simulation of Wear and Hot Bands in a Disc Brake by
adopting an Eulerian approach
IV. Multi-Objective Optimization of a Disc Brake System by using SPEA2 and
RBFN
V. Overview of Disc Brakes and Related Phenomena - a literature review

Papers have been reformatted to fit the layout of the thesis.

vii
Contents

Preface iii

Abstract v

List of Papers vii

Contents ix

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Governing equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.1 Heat transfer analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.2 Stress analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Material model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Residual stresses: a simple example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 Review of included papers 19

Bibliography 23

Paper I 27

Paper II 49

Paper III 71

Paper IV 89

Paper V 109

ix
Introduction
1

1.1 Background

Disc brakes are an important component of a vehicle retardation system. They

are used to stop or adjust the speed of a vehicle with changing road and traffic
conditions. During braking, a set of pads is pressed against a rotating disc and,
due to friction, heat is generated at the disc-pad interface, which causes the disc
surface temperature to rise in a short period of time. This heat ultimately transfers
to the vehicle and the environment, and the disc cools down.

As a result of higher temperatures, in addition to local changes of the contact

surfaces, there are global deformations occurring in the disc and the pad. Due to
different geometries of discs, each disc has different geometrical constraints to the
thermal expansion. So the deformations can appear in different forms in different
discs. Some of the most commonly observed thermal deformations are coning and
buckling [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Such geometrical deviations could be avoided or reduced
if thermal loading and disc geometry are symmetric about the midplane of the
disc [6, 7], and the friction ring is decoupled from the mounting bell so that it
has relatively more freedom of expansion in radial direction [8]. This is usually
intended to achieve by using a so-called composite brake disc in which mounting
bell and friction ring are separated from each other. Such a composite brake disc
is shown in figure 1.

In addition to these deformations, macrocracks might also appear on a disc surface

in the radial direction after some brake cycles, affecting the performance and life of
a brake disc [10, 11]. It has been shown in many previous works, e.g. [4, 12, 13], that
during hard braking, high compressive stresses are generated in the circumferential
direction on the disc surface which cause plastic yielding. But when the disc
cools down, these compressive stresses transform to tensile stresses. For repeated
braking when this kind of stress-strain history is repeated, stress cycles with high
amplitudes are developed which might generate low cycle fatigue cracks after a
few braking cycles. Dufrénoy and Weichert [4], confirmed the existence of residual
tensile stresses on the disc surface by measuring with the hole drilling strain gage
method. In the present work investigation of the stresses which cause these cracks
on a disc surface, by using finite element simulations, is a major focus.

1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Friction ring

Mounting bell

Section A-A

Figure 1: Simplified representation of a composite brake disc showing an integrally

casted mounting bell with a friction ring [9].

Many researchers have used the finite element analysis (FEA) techniques to predict
the thermomechanical behavior of disc brakes. To simplify the development of a
FEA model for a solid disc (as compared to a ventilated disc) it is often assumed
that pad is smeared over the entire 360◦ , implying that the disc-pad system can be
considered axisymmetric, see e.g. [14, 15]. In this simplified model circumferential
variation of temperature and contact pressure cannot be predicted. Another ap-
proach to simplify the model for a ventilated disc is to consider only a small sector
of a disc by taking the rotational symmetry into account, see e.g. [3, 4]. Again
the assumption has to be made about the smearing of the pad, implying that cir-
cumferential variations of temperature and contact pressure cannot be predicted
satisfactorily. It has been shown in the previous works [16, 17] that a pad also
undergoes thermal deformation, called convex bending, furthermore temperature
distribution is not constant along the circumference of a disc [18]. So, it is clear
that these approaches are not sufficient to model the real behavior, instead a FEA
model with complete three dimensional (3D) geometries of a disc and pads is re-
quired. Some researchers, see e.g. [1, 12], have used complete 3D geometries to
determine the thermomechanical behavior of disc brakes realistically.

Today, the prevalent way to simulate frictional heating of disc brakes in commercial
softwares is to use the fully coupled Lagrangian approach in which the finite element
mesh of a disc rotates relative to a brake pad and, thermal and mechanical analysis
are performed simultaneously. Although this approach works well, it is not feasible
due to extremely long computational times. Particularly, for simulating repeated
braking, this approach is of little importance for practical use. As a brake disc
could be considered a solid of revolution, partially or fully, which makes it possible
to model it using an Eulerian approach, in which the finite element mesh of the

2
 1.1. BACKGROUND

Material
Mesh

Eulerian description

x Lagrangian description

Figure 2: Schematic representation of the Eulerian and the Lagrangian approaches.

disc does not rotate relative to the brake pad but the material flows through the
mesh. This requires significantly lower computational time as compared to the
Lagrangian approach. Figure 2 shows schematically both the Eulerian and the
Lagrangian approaches.

The simulations performed within this work are by using a sequential approach
where temperature history from the frictional heat analysis is used as an input in a
coupled stress analysis. The frictional heat analysis, based on the Eulerian method,
is performed in an in-house software developed by Strömberg, which is described
in his earlier works [19, 20]. In this Eulerian approach the contact pressure is not
constant, but varies at each time step taking into account the thermomechanical
deformations of the disc and the pad. This updated contact pressure information
is used to compute heat generation and flow to the contacting bodies at each time
step. In such manner, the nodal temperatures are updated accurately and their
history is recorded at each time step. Later stress analysis is performed in the
commercial software Abaqus, which uses thermal history from the frictional heat
analysis as an input. Figure 3 shows the workflow of this sequential approach
schematically. Stresses due to the applied normal brake force, centrifugal forces
and deceleration forces are insignificant in comparison to the thermal stresses [21]
so only thermal stresses are considered in this work.

The results show that during hard braking high compressive stresses are generated
on the disc surface in the circumferential direction which cause yielding. But when
the disc cools down, these compressive stresses transform to tensile residual stresses.
For repeated braking an approximately stable stress-strain loop is obtained. So, if
the fatigue life data for the disc material is known, its fatigue life can be assessed.
It is also shown that convex bending of the pad due to thermal deformations is
the major cause of contact pressure concentration and hence appearance of hot
bands. The results show that when wear is considered, different distributions of
temperature on the disc surface are obtained for each new brake cycle. After a few

3
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Input file

In-house software Frictional heat

analysis

ODB file

Abaqus

Stress analysis
ODB file

Figure 3: Workflow of the sequential approach to determine the thermal stresses.

braking cycles two hot bands appear on the disc surface instead of only one. These
results are in agreement with experimental observations. The sequential approach
requires significantly lower computational time as compared to the Lagrangian
approach which makes it possible to perform multi-objective optimization studies.
Preliminary results of such a study are also presented in this work.

1.2 Governing equations

The governing equations for the frictional heat analysis, and stress analysis while
employing two different material hardening models will be described here.

1.2.1 Heat transfer analysis

Frictional heat power generated at the contact interface of a disc-pad system can
be expressed as

qgen = µpn ωr, (1)

where µ is the coefficient of friction, r is the distance of a contact pair from the
center of the disc, pn is the normal component of the contact traction vector, and
ω is the angular velocity of the disc. The frictional heat generated at the contact
interface flows into the disc and the pad. Heat conduction for each body is governed
by the classical heat equation
3
X ∂ 2T
ρcṪ = k , (2)
i=1
∂x2i

4
 1.2. GOVERNING EQUATIONS

where ρ is the density, c is the specific heat capacity and k is the thermal conduc-
tivity.

1.2.2 Stress analysis

Stress-strain relations used to describe deformation of a material are different for

the elastic and plastic domain. Consequently, it is important to know if the stress
state is in the elastic or plastic domain. For this purpose a yield criterion is used to
suggest the limit of elasticity and the initiation of yielding in a material under any
combination of stresses. There are several yield criterion used in practice. Some
of these are: the maximum shear stress criterion, the maximum principal stress
criterion and the von Mises stress criterion. These criteria could be expressed in
terms of material constants obtained from different physical tests e.g. a shear or
a uniaxial tensile test. In this work these material parameters are obtained by
considering uniaxial tests at different temperatures.
According to the von Mises stress criterion, yielding depends on the deviatoric
stress and not the hydrostatic stress. It is expressed as

p
3J2 − σy = 0 for plastic deformation
p (3)
3J2 − σy < 0 for elastic deformation

where σy is the stress at yield in a uniaxial test and J2 is the second invariant of
the deviatoric stress, i.e.
1
J2 = s : s, (4)
2
where s is the deviatoric stress, given by
tr(σ)
s=σ− I. (5)
3
The von Mises yield criterion appears as a cylindrical surface in the principal stress
space as shown in figure 4. A loading case where stresses lie inside this surface is
said to be an elastic loading. The yield surface can be described as a boundary
between elastic and plastic deformation regions.
During plastic deformations, subsequent yield surface can translate, expand or
distort in the stress space [22]. Two models are frequently used to describe the
hardening behavior of a material due to plastic deformations: isotropic harden-
ing and kinematic hardening. Isotropic hardening assumes that the yield surface
expands uniformly as shown in figure 5a. Kinematic hardening assumes that the
yield surface translates in the stress space as shown in figure 5b. Pure isotropic
hardening cannot predict the Bauschinger effect, as shown for a uniaxial loading

5
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

σ3

σ1 = σ2 = σ3

σ2

σ1

Figure 4: Schematic of the von Mises yield surface in the principal stress space.

case in figure 6, which has been observed in many materials experimentally. In

general, neither the isotropic nor the kinematic hardening model truly represents
the real material hardening behavior which could be quite complicated [22].
Given the temperature history, thermal strains are determined according to

t = α(T )(T − Tref ) − α(Ti )(Ti − Tref ), (6)

where α(T ) is the thermal dilatation coefficient, Tref is a reference temperature and
Ti is the initial temperature. The infinitesimal strain  is split into elastic, plastic
and thermal strains, expressed as

 = e +  p + t , (7)

where e and p represent the elastic and plastic strains, respectively. e is deter-
mined from this relation and then stresses can be computed by using Hooke’s law
as

σ = De , (8)

where D is the elasticity tensor. The stresses satisfy the following equilibrium
equation:

div(σ) = 0. (9)

When the von Mises yield criterion with isotropic hardening model is used, the
yield surface is defined as
p
f (σ, p , T ) = 3J2 − σy − K, (10)

6
 1.2. GOVERNING EQUATIONS

σ3 σ3

σ1 σ2 σ1 σ2
(a) Isotropic hardening (b) Kinematic hardening

Figure 5: Evolution of the von Mises yield surface with isotropic and kinematic
hardening. Solid line represents initial yield surface and dashed line represents
subsequent yield surface.

σ
σs
σy

2σy

2σs 

kinematic

isotropic

Figure 6: Uniaxial stress-strain curves for isotropic and kinematic hardening.

7
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

where σy = σy (T ) is the uniaxial yield strength and K = K(peff , T ) is the hardening

parameter. The effective plastic strain peff is expressed as

Zt r
2˙p : ˙p
peff = dt. (11)
3
0

The plastic strain p is governed by the following associative law

3s
˙p = λ̇ √ , (12)
2 3J2
where λ is the plastic multiplier, which is determined by the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker
conditions:

λ̇ ≥ 0, f ≤ 0, λ̇f = 0. (13)

When the von Mises yield criterion with kinematic hardening model is used, the
yield surface is defined as
r
3
f (η, T ) = η : η − σy , (14)
2
where

η =s−α (15)

and α is the back-stress tensor. The evolution of the back-stress is governed by

Ziegler’s rule, which can be written as
k
α̇ = (s − α)˙peff , (16)
σy

where k = k(T ) is the kinematic hardening modulus and the plastic strain p is
governed by the following associative law:
3 η
˙ p = λ̇ q . (17)
2 3η : η
2

1.3 Material model

To predict the thermomechanical behavior of a component realistically, it is im-
portant to have a material model which represents its characteristics sufficiently
accurately. During the frictional heat analysis, temperature independent material
data has been used for all the components. For more realistic results, temperature
dependent material data should be used. During stress analysis only the brake
disc is considered. The brake disc is casted in a grey iron alloy. The material

8
 1.4. RESIDUAL STRESSES: A SIMPLE EXAMPLE

model used in the present work was developed in an earlier work [23] in order
to simulate residual stresses in castings from solidification and is now utilized for
thermomechanical stress analysis.
Most of the material parameters required to develop this model were obtained from
measurements. Young’s modulus, the yield strength and hardening behavior were
obtained from tensile tests performed at 20◦ C, 200◦ C, 400◦ C, 600◦ C and 800◦ C.
The data was assumed or collected from literature for temperatures above 800◦ C.
This material data is used to build a temperature dependent material model with
nonlinear hardening which is described in detail in Paper I. The same data is
used to build a temperature dependent material model with linear hardening by
connecting the first and last point of the hardening curve with a straight line. This
linear hardening model is described in detail in Paper II.
The grey iron alloy shows different yield properties in tension and compression [7].
In the present work, it is assumed that the material has the same behavior both
in tension and compression. Although this assumption is unrealistic, it is not the
purpose of this work to develop a better material model. Moreover, in this work,
the von Mises yield criterion is used both in tension and compression.
In [7] a material model which employs the maximum principal stress yield criterion
in tension and von Mises yield criterion in compression was used. Another material
model which considers different yield behaviors in tension and compression, and
employs the von Mises yield criterion both in tension and compression, is reported
in [7] and [3]. In the latter model, numerical results were much closer to the
measured experimental data.

1.4 Residual stresses: a simple example

Sometimes, permanent stresses develop in a component even after the external
cause, e.g. heat gradient or force, has been removed. In the case of thermal stresses,
if they are sufficiently large to cause yielding in a component, then these stresses
may develop to residual stresses when the component cools down. Residual stresses
may affect the behavior and life of such a component. In order to describe this
kind of phenomenon, finite element analysis of a bar subjected to a temperature
load will be described and presence of residual stresses after the cooling of the bar
will be shown.
In figure 7, a bar is shown with boundary conditions. This bar is subjected to
a cyclic temperature load as shown in figure 8, where the peak temperature is
Tm = 600◦ C. The analysis is performed in Abaqus where the bar is meshed with
8-node biquadratic plane stress quadrilateral elements and reduced integration is
used. The material models described in section 1.3 will be used to compute stresses
in the bar.
In figure 9, a graph of different strain measures in the longitudinal direction is

9
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 7: The bar considered for the example shown with boundary conditions.

shown for only one load cycle while employing the temperature independent mate-
rial model with linear isotropic hardening. It can be seen that the thermal strain
increases linearly with the temperature increase. As the bar is restrained in the
longitudinal direction, consequently, expanding material causes compressive strain
in the bar. In the beginning only compressive elastic strain appear but as the ma-
terial reaches the elastic limit, compressive plastic yielding also starts. Both the
elastic and the plastic strains keep on increasing as the thermal strain increases.
After the thermal strain starts decreasing, the elastic strain first shows decreasing
trend and later becomes tensile in nature. During this decrease and reversal of
the elastic strain, plastic strain stays constant. With the further decrease in the
thermal strain, the material reaches its elastic limit and later starts yielding in
tension. This yielding in tension causes a reduction in the magnitude of plastic
strain. At the end of the first load cycle as the thermal strain vanishes, residual
elastic and plastic strains develop in the material. This causes residual stresses in
the material even the external source of excitation has been removed. Figure 10a
shows the evolution of longitudinal stress versus the longitudinal plastic strain for
the three cycles of temperature load. Residual tensile stress can be seen at the end
of loading cycles.

The computed stresses and strains strongly depend on the material model used. In
figure 10 and 11, the stress-strain graphs for the bar are shown with temperature in-
dependent and temperature dependent material models, receptively. By comparing

Tm
Temperature

0 1 2 3
Time

Figure 8: Evolution of temperature load with time for the bar.

10
 1.5. RESULTS

0.010
Thermal
Plastic
Elastic
0.005
Strain

0.000

−0.005

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Time

Figure 9: Evolution of different strain measures with time while using the temper-
ature independent linear isotropic hardening model.

the results it can be seen that relatively, the stresses are lower for the temperature
dependent models, as compared to the temperature independent material mod-
els. This reduction in the stresses is attributed to the reduction in hardening of
the material at high temperatures. Furthermore with the temperature dependent
material models, graphs show higher plastic strain which is attributed to larger
thermal strain due to higher thermal expansion coefficient at higher temperatures.
The stress analysis results show that during a load cycle, with increasing tempera-
tures high compressive stress is generated, but when the material cools down and
thermal strain vanishes, the compressive stresses transform to tensile stresses. This
can be observed for all material models but magnitude of the residual stress is rel-
atively lower with the kinematic hardening as compared to the isotropic hardening
models. Furthermore in the case of kinematic hardening model, it can be seen that
after the first cycle the stress-strain behavior becomes approximately stable.

1.5 Results
The assembly of the disc-pad system considered in this work is shown in figure
12 with one disc sectioned to reveal the ventilation vanes (patented [24]). This
is the assembly of a disc brake system of a heavy Volvo truck. In this hybrid
or composite design, mounting bell is not a part of the brake disc. The disc is
geometrically symmetric about a plane normal to the z-axis. It is assumed that
thermomechanical loads applied to the disc are symmetric. Due to these reasons
it could be assumed that coning or buckling does not take place. Therefore only a
half of this assembly seems sufficient to be considered for the simulation.
The splines at the inner periphery of the disc are used to mount the disc to the
wheel hub by engaging corresponding splines. For the simulation of thermal stresses

11
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

[x1.E9] [x1.E9]

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2
Stress

Stress
0.0 0.0

−0.2 −0.2

−0.4 −0.4
−0.008 −0.006 −0.004 −0.002 0.000 −0.008 −0.006 −0.004 −0.002 0.000
Strain Strain

(a) linear isotropic hardening (b) linear kinematic hardening

Figure 10: Evolution of the longitudinal stress versus the longitudinal plastic strain
for the bar, with temperature independent material models, subjected to the cyclic
temperature variations.

[x1.E9] [x1.E9]

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2
Stress

Stress

0.0 0.0

−0.2 −0.2

−0.4 −0.4
−0.008 −0.006 −0.004 −0.002 0.000 −0.008 −0.006 −0.004 −0.002 0.000
Strain Strain

(a) linear isotropic hardening (b) linear kinematic hardening

Figure 11: Evolution of the longitudinal stress versus the longitudinal plastic strain
for the bar, with temperature dependent material models, subjected to the cyclic
temperature variations.

12
 1.5. RESULTS

Z X

Figure 12: The assembly of the disc-pad system with a disc shown sectioned.

these splines are not considered important so they have been removed to simplify
the model. Similarly some geometry of the back plate has been removed to simplify
the model. The assembly with simplified geometries of the disc and the back plate
is shown in figure 13.
Simulation of thermal stresses has been performed with the sequential approach.
The results show that during hard braking, high compressive stresses are generated
on the disc surface in circumferential direction which cause plastic yielding. But
when the disc cools down, the compressive stresses transform to tensile stresses.
Such results for a single braking operation have been presented in Paper I where
the plasticity model is taken to be the von Mises yield criterion with nonlinear
isotropic hardening, and both the hardening and the yield limit are temperature
dependent.
For repeated braking it is important to use the kinematic hardening model as
the isotropic hardening model cannot represent the Bauschinger effect. It has
been shown in [25] that in grey cast iron, for a cyclic loading resulting in plastic
deformation in both tension and compression, the kinematic hardening model gives
a somewhat better agreement with experimental data than isotropic hardening.
In Paper II results of an analysis for repeated braking are presented, where the
plasticity model is taken to be the von Mises yield criterion with linear kinematic
hardening and both the hardening and the yield limit are temperature dependent.
Figure 14 shows the temperature distribution on the disc surface after a brake
application during this analysis. A ring of high temperatures, called hot band,
can be distinguished in the middle of the disc surface. Figure 15 shows a ring in
the middle of disc surface, at the end of brake application, with relatively higher
compressive circumferential stresses which roughly corresponds to the ring of high
temperatures. The disc is cooled after this braking operation, completing one brake
cycle. It is assumed that braking conditions are same for all the brake cycles so

13
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Z X

Figure 13: The assembly of the disc-pad system after removing the geometry not
considered important for the simulation.

they generate similar temperature history. Hence the temperature history gener-
ated during one brake cycle is merged three times in a sequence. In figure 16,
graphs of circumferential stresses against different measures of strain in circum-
ferential direction, for three brake cycles, are plotted. The node chosen for these
plots is located on the disc surface at 180◦ from the middle of the pad and at a
radius of 163.9 [mm]. It can be seen that residual tensile stresses in circumferential
direction are predicted with both hardening models but with the kinematic hard-
ening model these stresses are lower in magnitude as compared to the isotropic
hardening model. After the first cycle an approximately stable stress-strain loop
is obtained for the linear kinematic hardening model. So if the fatigue life data
for the disc material is known, its fatigue life can be assessed. Furthermore results
also show the appearance of tensile stresses in radial direction during braking and
cooling of the disc. But the residual radial stresses are compressive as compared to
the residual circumferential stresses which are tensile. This is indeed in agreement
with the observation that radial microcracks on disc surfaces are more marked than
circumferential ones, even when macroscopic cracks do not appear [4]. Figure 17
shows a ring in the middle of the disc surface, at the end of three brake cycles,
where effective plastic strain is relatively higher. So the material in this area is
most susceptible to fatigue cracks.

The simulation results presented in the first two papers predict one hot band in the
middle of the disc. It has been explained by showing the contact pressure plots at
different time steps. It is also shown (in Paper III) that convex bending of the pad
due to thermal deformations is the major cause of contact pressure concentration
and hence appearance of hot bands. In the first two papers wear of the pad is
not considered as it does not show much influence on the temperature distribution
during a single braking operation for a pad without wear history and hence on the
stresses.

14
 1.5. RESULTS

NT11
639
590
541
492
443
393
344
295
246
197
148
98
49
0

Figure 14: After the brake application, a ring of high temperatures develops on
the disc surface.

( g )
31E+06
10E+06
í11E+06
í33E+06
í54E+06
í75E+06
í96E+06
í118E+06
í139E+06

Figure 15: Circumferential stresses at the end of brake application during first
cycle with the linear kinematic hardening model.

15
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

[x1.E9]

0.30 thermal
total
mechanical
plastic
0.20

0.10
Stress

0.00

−0.10

−0.20
−5.0 0.0 5.0 [x1.E−3]
Strain

(a) linear isotropic hardening

[x1.E9]

0.30 plastic
mechanical
thermal
total
0.20

0.10
Stress

0.00

−0.10

−0.20
−5.0 0.0 5.0 [x1.E−3]
Strain

(b) linear kinematic hardening

Figure 16: Evolution of the circumferential stress versus the circumferential strain
for the repeated braking.

16
 1.5. RESULTS

( g )
34Eí03
30Eí03
26Eí03
21Eí03
17Eí03
13Eí03
9Eí03
4Eí03
0E+00

Figure 17: Effective plastic strain at the end of third brake cycle with the linear
kinematic hardening model.

The results show that when wear is considered, different distributions of tempera-
ture on the disc surface are obtained for each new brake cycle. After a few braking
cycles two hot bands appear on the disc surface instead of only one, which is in
agreement with experimental observation. The influence of wear on temperature
distribution is discussed in Paper III.
This sequential approach has proved tremendously cheap in terms of computational
time when compared to a fully coupled Lagrangian approach. Significantly lower
computational resources required to simulate a disc brake by using the sequential
approach gives the freedom to perform multi-objective optimization studies. Such
a study is performed in Paper IV where the mass of the back plate, the brake energy
and the maximum temperature generated on the disc surface during hard braking
are optimized. The design variables are the applied load of braking, Young’s mod-
ulus of friction material and the thickness of back plate. The results indicate that
a brake pad with lowest possible stiffness will result in an optimized solution with
regards to all three objectives. The results also reveal a linear relation of applied
braking load and brake energy. Another interesting result is the trend of a decrease
in maximum temperature with an increase in back plate thickness.

17
Review of included papers
2

Paper I

In this paper results of a simulation of stresses in a brake disc for a single braking
operation are presented. The plasticity model is taken to be the von Mises yield
criterion with nonlinear isotropic hardening, where both the hardening and the
yield limit are temperature dependent.

Paper II

In this paper results of a simulation of thermal stresses in a brake disc for repeated
braking are presented. The plasticity model is taken to be the von Mises yield
criterion with linear kinematic hardening, where both the hardening and the yield
limit are temperature dependent.

Paper III

In this paper the influence of the wear history of a pad on the temperature dis-
tribution on a disc surface is presented. It is also shown that convex bending of
a pad assembly as a result of thermal deformations is a significant factor towards
the concentration of contact pressure in the middle of a pad.

Paper IV

In this paper results for a multi-objective optimization of a disc brake system are
presented. The mass of the back plate of the brake pad, the brake energy and the
maximum temperature generated in the disc during hard braking are optimized.
The design variables are the applied load of braking, Young’s modulus of friction
material and the thickness of the back plate.

19
CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF INCLUDED PAPERS

Paper V
In this paper a literature review of disc brakes and related phenomena is presented.
A detailed description of different geometries and materials for the components of a
brake assembly is given. The evolution of tribological interface of disc-pad system is
also covered in detail here. Different operational problems such as fade, geometrical
deviations and noise are also discussed.

20
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