Enhancement of Thermomechanical Protocol for Automotive Brake Using the Symmetry of the Disc: Numerical Validation and Material Selection

In the context of the automotive industry, this paper proposes an enhancement of the numerical simulation using FEM and performing material choosing with the Ashby method for automotive brake discs, using the symmetric shape of the disc. Automotive braking involves the dissipation of kinetic energy through heat generation due to friction, a physical phenomenon that alters the mechanical properties of brake discs. This prompts automotive development engineers to investigate new materials capable of absorbing heat while maintaining their mechanical properties. A thermomechanical study of a ventilated front brake disc has successfully demonstrated a good performance of cast iron because the equivalent stress is significantly lower than the elastic limit, with a margin of approximately 73 MPa. Compared to validated results extracted from the state of the art, the adopted methodology gives more realistic results with minimum CPU requirements, where the total time of calculation is around 40 min. More than that, the results are suitable to be used for studying durability and other properties like mechanical impact and fatigue.