Abstract
KEYWORDS – ventilated brake disc, wire woven bulk diamond, transient, steady state, heat transfer
ABSTRACT A novel ventilated brake disc with a wire-woven bulk diamond (WBD) core improves heat dissipation compared to a ventilated pin-finned brake disc. This study shows that the WBD core improves heat dissipation over a range of steady speed descents of a medium-sized truck in which braking power as heat input to the brake disc is fixed. To this end, for a constant braking power of 2 kW, three speeds of 100 rpm, 150 rpm, and 250 rpm, corresponding to roughly 20 km/h, 30 km/h, and 50 km/h, respectively were tested. The WBD brake disc reduced the average operating temperatures by 6%, 8%, and 13%, for the operating speeds of 100 rpm, 150 rpm, and 250 rpm, respectively. This improved heat dissipation for a given braking power, over a range of operating speeds, is attributed to an increased heat transfer area and stronger flow mixing in the ventilated channel of the WBD brake disc as compared to the pin-finned brake disc. The 13% improvement at 250 rpm as compared to the 6% improvement at 100 rpm is due to the increased flow mixing which occurs in the WBD core at higher flow rates drawn through the ventilated channel.