Abstract
During the effective life of a brake pad the process of wear takes place until it is being replaced. It is, therefore, important to understand the pad wear behaviours and the pad wear mechanism. Not being able to understand the effects of wear may lead to unsuitable brake designs and materials; which in turn can result to localised pressured and thermal fatigue. In this research, 2D coupled temperature-displacement FE models are initially utilized to examine the feasibility of using the Archard and Arrhenius wear laws in simulation of the pad wear during braking processes. From the 2D simulation the most suitable methods/approaches for the more complex 3D Finite Element models are identified. The 3D FE models, with the capacity of predicting pad wear, are constructed based on the data from experiments, e.g. the brake pad dimensions and the average friction coefficient (after the bedding-in process). A second model with an exaggerated wear factor of 5000 is used in the simulation which can demonstrate the wear mechanism in detail. The results from the simulations show that the model effectively visualize the wear mechanism of the pad, and shows how the pad wear is affected by the braking induced contact pressures and the friction induced interface temperatures (and vice versa). The wear mechanism can also be seen evidently in the exaggerated wear model. It is concluded that in applications where friction is the principle of operation it is mostly important to understand the wear mechanism, which can affect the thermal behaviour of brakes. Therefore, the development of a wear algorithm that makes it possible through simulations is necessary.
KEYWORDS Wear, friction, pressure, simulation, thermal