Abstract
KEYWORDS – Vibration, Multi-body, Modelling, Non-linear, Contact.
ABSTRACT
The eradication of brake squeal is of primary importance to the brake engineer; increasing levels of vehicle refinement and customer requirements dictate that brake noise is unacceptable. Therefore, increasing levels of sophistication must be sought at the design stage to help eliminate or reduce the propensity of a brake to generate noise. The early prediction of brake noise is of extreme interest as expensive rig testing and prototypes will be minimized. Thus far, the complex eigenvalue approach using finite element analysis has been a favoured approach for brake designers, however there have been recent developments and interest in the use of flexible multi body dynamics (MBD) for the simulation of brake squeal. It has previously been demonstrated that flexible multi body dynamic simulations are capable of predicting the unstable modes of vibration. This paper extends previous work presented by the authors to present a parametric study using the MBD approach and demonstrate how brake squeal can be predicted. Comparison with data from both dynamometer and on-vehicle testing is presented which shows good correlation. Furthermore, the effect of different brake design geometry is also investigated which shows that the MBD model is very sensitive to design changes.