Impact of Curved Vents, Holes and Slots on Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Automobile Disc Brake - FEM Simulation and Validation

Ventilated discs have gained significant attraction for automobile disc brake due to enhanced thermal performance, but the optimal choice needs careful analysis of thermal and structural behaviors. Following the previous studies on solid and straight ventilated discs, the present study considers discs with three new ventilation patterns namely curved vents, curved vents with holes and curved vents with holes and slots. Three-dimensional modeling was done by SOLIDWORKS 15, and finite element simulation was performed by ANSYS 15. In the thermal analysis, the temperature history during one braking cycle was studied for each model, and the structural parameters analyzed include total deformation, Von Mises stress and contact pressure. The study shows that changing from straight vents to curved vents improves thermal performance without affecting the mechanical behavior. Moreover, the thermo-mechanical behavior is further improved by adding holes and slots on the surface, along with curved vents.