FEA Analysis of Disc Brake using ANSYS

In brakes, the main property is the thermal conductivity as a lot of heat is generated in the brakes when it is applied. So, the brakes must be strong enough to control or dissipate the heat and to stop the vehicle with minimum displacement in urgent situations.

The main property of the brake is that it should cool down rapidly to avoid any structural imbalances to the brakes and another thing is that it should clean itself automatically.

Disc brake slows the rotatory motion of the wheel by the abrasion of brakes pads onto the wheel. During braking, kinetic energy is converted into heat energy, which heats the air present in between the brakes by which the durability of the brakes increases.

Finite element analysis helps in numerically solving any engineering problem. FEA represents every engineering problem in a numerical way by which the solution to the problems can be known and whether the process is feasible or no can be known.

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Steps for FEA Analysis:

FEA analysis involves mainly of these steps:

1. Geometry making
2. Meshing
3. Setting boundary conditions
4. Modeling and numerical setup
5. Results and Conclusions

Step I. Geometry making: 

• The geometry of the disc brake is created in Ansys or in CREO software which allows creating any kind of structure easily and efficiently.
• In this. the shape of the disc and the dimensions of the disc are to be set.
• Then, the created geometry has to be imported into the Ansys software for further steps.

Step II. Meshing:

• Meshing divides the main domain into several sub-regions which increases the accuracy of the simulation.
• Meshing also decides the kind of result which shall be generated. The result depends on the type of mesh quality.
• After the geometry has been imported into Ansys it has to be converted into a 3D structure.
• Usually, the number of nodes is set high to increase the accuracy of the experiment.

Step III. Setting boundary conditions:

• Boundary conditions are important to be set well in advance so that the simulating time can be reduced.
• In this step, the type of material which has been used to create the break has to set and other properties of the material including the weight of the brake.

Step IV. Modeling and numerical setup:

• Modeling of the brake is necessary as it tells/shows how the brake will look in real.
• Numerical are important in the simulation.
• Numerical like stress applied, force, the lubricant, and the friction, these are few important parameters in the disc brake.

Step V. Results:

• Based on the type of numerical and the type of material used the results may vary.
• The results can also be checked by varying all the parameters of the simulation.

By this simulation, the things that can be known are

• The best material to make disc brakes
• Maximum and minimum principal stress profile of the brakes
• Temperature profile
• Stress profile
• Hardness profile
• Other properties of the materials.
• Lubricants efficiency
• The durability of the disc brake.

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• ANSYS
• Mechanical

• CFD
• ANSYS

FEA Analysis of Disc Brake Using ANSYS