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Evaluation of Disc Brake Materials for Squeal Reduction

M. Nouby , J. Abdo , D. Mathivanan & K. Srinivasan
a b c a b c b

AU/FRG Institute for CAD/CAM, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat Oman Director of CAE INFOTECH, Chennai, 600020, India

Available online: 18 May 2011

To cite this article: M. Nouby, J. Abdo, D. Mathivanan & K. Srinivasan (2011): Evaluation of Disc Brake Materials for Squeal Reduction, Tribology Transactions, 54:4, 644-656 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10402004.2011.587634

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Tribology Transactions, 54: 644-656, 2011 Copyright C Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers ISSN: 1040-2004 print / 1547-397X online DOI: 10.1080/10402004.2011.587634

Evaluation of Disc Brake Materials for Squeal Reduction

M. NOUBY,1 J. ABDO,2 D. MATHIVANAN,3 and K. SRINIVASAN2 1 AU/FRG Institute for CAD/CAM, Anna University Chennai 600025 India 2 Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Sultan Qaboos University Muscat Oman 3 Director of CAE INFOTECH Chennai 600020 India

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A nontraditional evaluation tool is introduced to examine the effects of different materials, in practical applications, that are used in fabricating disc brake components for commonly used or special requirements such as heavy-duty performance and racing cars. As an extension to earlier nite element (FE) disc brake models, a detailed FE model of the whole disc brake corner that incorporates the wheel hub and steering knuckle is developed and validated using experimental modal analysis. Stability analysis of the disc brake corner using the nite element software ABAQUS is carried out to predict squeal occurrence also taking into account the negative and positive damping effects and friction material real surface to increase the accuracy of prediction. A Taguchi methodbased design of experiment is used to better assess the contributions of different materials and its interaction effects for effective reduction of brake squeal. The results showed that the pad friction material contributes 56% to the total system instability (squeal generation). The rotor material contributes 22% of the system instability. Caliper and bracket materials participate 11 and 11%, respectively.
KEY WORDS Disc Brake Squeal; Finite Element Analysis; Modal Testing; Material Modications; Taguchi Approach

INTRODUCTION
Squeal noise that occurs in disc brakes for automobiles has been one of the major concerns in the automotive industry due to the persistent complaint that reduces customers satisfaction with their vehicles. It is commonly accepted by researchers working in the eld of brake noise and vibration that squeal noise in a disc brake is initiated by instability due to friction forces, leading to self-excited vibrations (Van Wagner, et al. (1)). Many researchers have worked on eliminating brake squeal in order to improve vehicle passengers comfort and reduce the overall environmental noise level (Dai and Teik (2); Nouby, et al. (3); Chen,
Manuscript received December 27, 2010 Manuscript accepted May 9, 2011 Review led by Farshid Sadeghi

et al. (4); Gesch, et al. (5); Kung, et al. (6)). Despite these efforts, no general solutions exist. Therefore, it is one of the most important issues that require a detailed and in-depth study for prediction as well as to eliminate brake squeal. The detection of disc brake squeal instabilities and the prediction of amplitudes during squeal events are complex tasks that have been studied for many years and continue to be a major concern in the automotive industry (Kinkaid, et al. (7); Ouyang, et al. (8)). Analysis of brake squeal is a difcult task due to numerous factors involved in the study and the effects of the interaction between the factors. Those factors are rotor disc, friction pads, back plate, applied force, angular velocity, and the temperature. Many studies have used different techniques to measure and study squeal. They found that the noise is caused by the back plate, pad material, pad geometry, and temperature rises due to friction force (Kung, et al. (9)). In addition, the engagement pressure and speed of rotation of the rotor have a signicant inuence on brake squeal (Farhang and Lim (10)) but are not covered in the present work because it mainly focuses on material related inuences on brake squeal. Finite element models are classically used to perform two kinds of analyses for disc brake squeal: eigenvalue analysis to detect squeal frequencies and time analysis to determine selfexcited vibrations during the squeal event. One of the greatest advantages of a brake nite element model is that the different parts of the brake system are modeled realistically. Therefore, complex parametric studies based on an eigenvalue analysis are extensively investigated to detect brake squeal in relation to different physical parameters (Liles (11); Joe, et al. (12); Liu, et al. (13); Mario, et al. (14); Ouyang and Abu-Bakar (15)). The shortcomings of using of complex eigenvalue analysis (CEA) are overpredictions and missing unstable modes in the squeal frequency range. To overcome these limitations of CEA and to increase the prediction accuracy, Chen (16) stated that considering positive system damping avoids the probability of overprediction while introducing negative damping tends to minimize underprediction. Structural modications including geometric and material modications of a disc brake system are widely used to reduce brake squeal (Farhang and Lim (10); Liles (11); Joe, et al. (12); Liu, et al. (13); Fieldhouse and Steel (17)). The literature review indicates that in nite element modeling, researchers vary the geometric details of the nite element (FE)

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brake model. For instance, many researchers have considered only a simplied FE model of the disc brake assembly; that is, a disc and two pads (Liu, et al. (13); Mario, et al. (18); Coudeyras, et al. (19)). A few have developed FE models consisting of a rotor, caliper, mounting bracket, piston, and brake pads; that is, a disc and two pads (Dai and Teik (2)). Some researchers (Liles (11); Abu-Bakar (20); Papinniemi (21)) used a detailed FE model that consisted of a disc, a piston, a caliper, a carrier, piston and nger pads, two bolts, and two guide pins. From the literature review, it was observed that just a few of the FE models were validated at both the individual components and assembly level based on modal testing data in order to improve the prediction accuracy of the disc brake squeal. Of these works, only a few studies based on nite element models have considered the stability analysis of brake systems, including the effect of steering knuckle and wheel hub on squeal occurrence, without validation of all disc brake components or validation brake assembly (Kung, et al. (6)). This leads to the fact that the FE models including a steering knuckle and wheel hub need to be validated as both individual components and assemblies. An extension of the FE models discussed earlier is a threedimensional FE model of the disc brake corner that incorporates a wheel hub and steering knuckle that was developed and validated at both components and assembly levels to predict disc brake squeal. In addition, the real pad surface topography, negative frictionvelocity slope, and friction damping were considered to increase the prediction accuracy of the squeal. Finally, the Taguchi method was used to determine optimal materials of disc brake components for minimization of squeal propensity using several types of materials for disc brake components as found in practice. The Taguchi method (Rowlands, et al. (22); Antony and Antony (23); Maghsoodloo, et al. (24)) is a systematic application of design and analysis of experiments for the purpose of designing and improving product quality. It can reveal an optimal setting after a limited number of experiments have been conducted. The main contribution of the present work is to present the evolutions of stability analysis with the effects of friction damping (positive damping), frictionalvelocity slope (negative damping), and real pad surface topography, using actual material used in fabricating disc brake components, considering the effect of a steering knuckle and wheel hub on squeal occurrence and using the Taguchi method to determine the signicant contributions of the material modications on reducing the squeal propensity and its interactions as well. For damped systems it is possible to neglect slight gyroscopic effects because damping is a key parameter that requires highly detailed analysis when modeling the occurrence of instabilities and determines the efcient control of the damping structure of the system relative to circulatory and et al. (25)). gyroscopic actions (Herve,

slave and master surfaces in the region of contact constraints and has the following characteristics that suit our case:

r r

The surface-to-surface formulation enforces contact conditions in an average sense over regions nearby slave nodes (pad surface) rather than only at individual slave nodes. The averaging regions are approximately centered on slave nodes, so each contact constraint will predominantly consider one slave node but will also consider adjacent slave nodes. Some penetration may be observed at individual nodes; however, large, undetected penetrations of master nodes into the slave surface do not occur with this discretization. The contact direction is based on an average normal of the slave surface in the region surrounding a slave node. Surface-to-surface discretization is not applicable if a nodebased surface is used in the contact pair denition.

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The whole brake corner typically consists of the steering knuckle assembly, the wheel hub, and the actual disc brake assembly. The disc brake assembly consists of a ventilated rotor (disc), a oating caliper with a single piston, an anchor bracket, two bolts, two guide pins, and two brake pads. The brake pad mounted on the piston is often referred to as the piston pad, and the pad on the opposite side is called the nger pad. The brake corner is connected to the cars suspension system through the steering knuckle, the wheel hub is connected to the drive line, and the brake cylinder in the caliper is connected to the hydraulic brake line system. Hence, the brake corner can be looked upon as a subsystem consisting of a number of components interrelated to each other and to other subsystems in the vehicle. A detailed three-dimensional FE model of the whole disc brake corner was developed. Figures 1a and 1b show a solid model and the FE model of the entire disc brake corner. The FE model consists of a disc, a piston, a caliper, an anchor bracket, a wheel hub, a steering knuckle, piston and nger pads, two bolts, and two guide pins. All of the disc brake components are modeled carefully in order to achieve as accurate a representation as possible of a real disc brake. The FE model used up to 19,000 solid elements and approximately 78,000 degrees of freedom (DOFs). The disc, brake pads, piston, wheel hub, guide pins, and bolts were developed using eight-node linear solid elements, and other components were

METHODOLOGY AND NUMERICAL MODEL Finite Element Model

A surface-to-surface discretization technique was used to develop the FE model because it considers the shape of both the
Fig. 1Commercial disc brake corner: (a) solid model and (b) FE model. (color gure available online).

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TABLE 1MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF DISC BRAKE COMPONENT Density (kg m3) 7,155 2,045 7,850 7,005 7,050 7,625 7,390 8,018 2,850 7,860 Youngs Modulus (GPa) 125 2.6 210 171 166 167 168 193 71 210 Poissons Ratio 0.23 0. 3 0.3 0.27 0.27 0.29 0.29 0.27 0. 3 0.3

Components Disc Friction material Back plate Caliper Anchor bracket Steering knuckle Wheel hub Piston Guide pin Bolt

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developed using a combination of eight-node, six-node, and fournode linear solid elements.

Experimental Model: Validation of the FE Model

In this section two stages were used to validate the FE model using experimental modal analysis (EMA). The rst stage obtained dynamic characteristics of the individual disc brake components with freefree boundary conditions. In the second stage the dynamic characteristics of the complete assembly with boundary conditions are performed. In a recent study (Abdo, et al. (26)) the authors considered the inuence of various factors, namely, back plate Youngs modulus, back plate thickness, chamfer, distance between two slots, and angle of slots, on the disc brake squeal. The proposed approach was aimed toward prediction of optimal pad design to reduce the damping ratio of the dominant unstable modes through the various factors of the brake pad geometrical construction. Based on this study (Abdo, et al. (26)), the authors used a new pad with a brake pad distance between the two slots equal to 44 mm at a slot angle of 0 and a chamfer of the edges equal to 9 mm.

individual components were assembled on a brake test rig under brake pressure of 1 MPa, as shown in Fig. 2. In the FE assembly model, traditionally disc brake components are connected by so-called friction springs through a number of imaginary linear spring elements. In recent years, an alternative method associated with the direct connection of brake components has been suggested (Bajer, et al. (27)), therefore eliminating the imaginary springs. Direct contact interaction between disc brake components is represented by a combination of node-to-surface and surface-to-surface contact elements (Abdo (28)). There are three contact features available in ABAQUS (MULIA, Dassault systems Europe) and were useful in our work. These features are gap contact elements, surface-to-node contact interaction, and surface-to-surface contact interaction. The contact algorithm used between disc and pads was a surface-tosurface contact. The surface of the disc was dened as the master because it had a coarser mesh than the pad and the disc was a stiffer material. The pad was consequently selected as the slave surface. For each node on the slave surface, software attempts to nd the closest point on the master surface of the contact pair where the master surfaces normal passes through the node on the slave surface. The interaction is then discretized between the point on the master surface and the slave node. After all boundary conditions and interactions between all brake components are considered, modal analysis is performed at the full assembly under the same conditions of experimental. From the analysis results, it is shown that a good agreement was found between the predicted results and the measured data, as shown in Table 3.

Experimental Setup for Squeal Measurements

The measurement of squeal noise of the disc brake system was conducted using a brake test rig as shown in Fig. 2. A number of tests were conducted and squeal noise was recorded at different speeds and pressures using a 3.7-kW DC motor with a variable-speed drive to control the speed manually. A tachometer was used to read the speed of the disc. The braking pressure was applied using a pressure pump and its value was measured by pressure gauge. In order to measure squeal noise, sound pressure level (SPL) measurements were made using a microphone, which was mounted 500 mm from the disc brake assembly. The microphone output signal was fed to a fast Fourier transform (FFT) analyzer, and the SPL spectrum was calculated using DEWESoft (Radio Shack, USA). The recorded data were plotted as sound pressure level (dB) against frequency (Hz). Any SPL value exceeding 70 dB is considered squeal noise. It was found that experimental squeal frequencies for a number of tests were dominant at 1,438, 2,370, 7,442, and 8,557 Hz, as shown in Fig. 3. At brake-line pressure of 0.7 MPa and a rotational speed of 5 rad/s, it was also found that there were four squeal frequencies at the same values, which had higher sound pressure level, as shown in Fig. 4.

Validation of FE Model at Component Level

The experimental modal analysis at the component level was carried out up to frequencies of 10 kHz at freefree boundary conditions. The freefree condition allows the structure to vibrate without interference from other parts, making the visualization of mode shapes associated with each natural frequency easier and simpler for FE model validation. By comparing the experimental and predicted results, a large difference was found. In order to reduce the difference, an FE modication was considered. The process (FE updating) was used to reduce the difference in frequencies between predicted and experimental results (Liles (11)). The baseline material properties of the disc brake components after FE updating are listed in Table 1. By comparing the experimental and predicted results it was found that the predicted natural frequencies were quite close to those experimentally measured, as shown in Table 2.

Validation FE Model at Assembly Level

The second validation stage was the assembly level test using the boundary conditions with applied pressure. In this case, the

MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS
Ideally, the materials used in braking systems should exhibit properties such as good thermal diffusivity and resistance to

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TABLE 2COMPARISON BETWEEN PREDICTED RESULTS AND MEASURED DATA Components Mode Exp. (Hz) FE (Hz) Error (%) Mode Shape

Rotor

1 2 3

1,464 3,198 4,992 878 1,770 3,341

1,453 3,225 5,062 880 1,755 3,164

0. 7 0. 8 1. 4 0.2 0. 8 5. 2 1. 7 5 3. 2 2.4 4. 6 1.4 1. 7

Anchor bracket

1 2 3

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Caliper

1 2 3

2,282 3,769 5,017 2,819 7,067 7,287 1,232

2,293 3,960 5,182 2,889 6,735 7,392 1,211

Brake pad

1 2

Piston Steering knuckle and wheel hub

1 1

2 3

2,138 4,856

2,242 4,421

4. 8 8. 9

corrosion, low weight, long durability, friction stability, low wear ratio, and good costbenet ratio. Stiffness of the disc brake components usually has a signicant effect on brake squeal generation. It is necessary to design brake components such that their natural frequencies in the audible range are as isolated as possible to avoid mode coupling. In this section, the role of material properties for the brake pads, rotor, caliper and anchor bracket in the model output are explored in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the occurrence of squeal in the automotive brake system under evaluation.

Because the focus of this analysis is the brake squeal, the friction material was modeled as a linear elastic material to avoid difculties in advecting the nonlinear material modeling during the adaptive meshing procedure, which was used to simulate wear in the friction material. Hence, the load-deection behavior was kept within the linear zone. This assumption was made in most of the previous publications previously referred to. Adaptive meshing in ABAQUS is a tool that makes it possible to maintain a high-quality mesh throughout an analysis, even when large deformation or loss of material occurs. Also, the

TABLE 3COMPARISONS BETWEEN PREDICTED RESULTS AND MEASURED DATA FOR BRAKE ASSEMBLY Mode Exp. (Hz) FE analysis (Hz) Error (%) 1 1,611 1,562 3 2 3,222 3,174 1.4 3 5,065 5,184 2.3 4 7,043 6,597 6.3 5 9,130 9,452 3.5

Mode shape

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Fig. 2Experimental modal analysis for disc brake assembly. (color gure available online).

100.0

90.0

SPL (dB)
80.0 70.0 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000

Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 3Results of experimental squeal tests at different operating conditions.

nonlinear load-deection characteristics of the friction material used in disc brakes have a signicant effect on brake squeal propensity and are well known (Kumar, et al. (29)), but only linear stiffness characteristics are used in this work, mainly because, as presented in Kumar, et al. (29) for values of Poissons ratio < 0.3, the relationship between the load and deection remains linear. In addition, there is only a slight variation in the elastic modulus between the surfaces. Thus, for this case it is not considered imperative to include the nonlinearity effects. Details of the material modications are given in Table 4. The mode coupling mechanism is not considered in this work due to its diminutive effect and because it is more related to the design of the caliper, caliper adapter, rotor, or drum. It is

also evident in the results obtained in this work that the friction material selection has a greater inuence on squeal propensity than other structural components, because they only affect the eigenfrequencies and not the eigenmodes. A detailed investigation of the dependence of squeal propensity on the eigenfrequencies of the structural components has been presented by Huang, et al. (30).

Pad Material
Brake pads consist of friction materials that are highly lled composite materials with a very complicated mechanical behavior and back plates made of steel. Friction materials are assumed to be linear and elastic. In this study, variation of Youngs

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Fig. 4Sound pressure level of brake squeal at pressure of 0.7 Mpa and speed 5 rad/s. (color gure available online).

modulus of the friction material from 0.5 to 4 GPa was simulated. These values of Youngs modulus are in the range readily attained with brake pads available on the market. Adaptive meshing is intended to model large-deformation problems. It does not attempt to minimize discretization errors in small-deformation analyses. However, it is intended for modeling the effects of ablation, or wear, of material.

Rotor Material
Brake rotors are components of disc brake systems used in vehicles. The size, weight, and other attributes of brake rotors are highly variable. The material generally used for commercial brake discs is cast gray iron, which is a material that ts the requirements it is intended for, such as acceptable thermal proper-

ties, sufcient mechanical strength, satisfactory wear resistance, good damping properties, and low cost; it is also relatively easy to cast and to machine. Grey cast iron differs somewhat from steels and most other structural metals in that the elastic modulus can be varied signicantly by changing the carbon equivalent. However, cast iron has a relatively high material density compared to other materials. As a consequence, cast iron brake rotors are often heavy. C/C-SiC is a carbon ber phase added to a silicon carbide matrix. The resulting material has increased strength with a lower density and high tribological characteristics. The most predominant feature is its ability to withstand high temperatures without failure. Recently, ceramic matrix composites have been considered for high-performance brake discs in the automobile industry as an

TABLE 4PROPOSED MATERIAL MODIFICATIONS Component Pads Material Type Friction material (soft) Friction material (baseline) Friction material (stiff) C/C-SiC Al-MMC Cast iron (baseline) Aluminum Cast iron Steel Aluminum Cast iron Steel Youngs Modulus (GPa) 0.5 2.6 4 50 70 125 71 171 210 71 166 210 Density (kg m3) 2,045 2,045 2,045 2,100 2,800 7,155 2,800 7,005 7,850 2,800 7,050 7,850

Rotor

Caliper

Bracket

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alternative of the conventional cast iron disc mainly due to their excellent thermomechanical properties as well as high strengthto-weight ratio. For weight reduction, one approach utilizes lightweight metals, such as aluminum rotors with a ceramic coating, or a metal matrix composite (MMC). However, aluminum and other lightweight metals, when used as brake rotors, often result in unacceptable performance due to low strength and poor wear resistance. Many efforts have been made recently by different automobile manufacturers worldwide regarding the possibility of using Al-MMCs in place of cast iron for disc brake applications in ground transport systems. All of these efforts were undertaken with the prime aim of utilizing the favorable characteristics of AlMMCs, such as high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion, and low relative density when compared with cast iron. The materials selected are shown in Table 4.

where KStructure is the structural stiffness matrix, KFriction is the asymmetrical friction-induced stiffness matrix, and is the friction coefcient. For a particular mode the eigenvalue pair is i1,2 = i i i [3]

where i is the real part, i and is the imaginary part for the ith mode. The motion for each mode can be described as a damped sinusoidal wave: {ui } = {Ai } eai t cos i t [4]

Caliper and Anchor Bracket Materials

Brake calipers and anchor brackets are made of ductile iron. The carbon content of ductile irons is lower than grey cast iron, and the carbon formation is in spheroidal or nodular form. Ductile iron exhibits a proportional or elastic stressstrain relationship similar to that of steel but is limited by the gradual onset of plastic deformation. Ductile iron has tensile strengths of around 400 MPa as opposed to high-carbon grey irons, which may be as low as 150 MPa. This, along with an elastic modulus of approximately 170 GPa, makes them the preferred choice for use in cast iron components in low-cost applications for which the high thermal conductivity of grey iron is less important. The higher strength is an obvious benet in most applications, but the higher modulus is also important because the stiffness of components is proportional to modulus and can be vital in ensuring proper operation and wear of components. The modulus of elasticity for ductile iron, measured in tension, varies from 162 to 170 GPa. Some brake calipers are made from aluminum materials with a modulus of elasticity 70 GPa. The ranges of the caliper and bracket materials selected are also shown in Table 4.

Thus, i and i are the damping coefcient (real part) and damped natural frequency (imaginary part) describing damped sinusoidal motion. If the damping coefcient is negative, decaying oscillations typical of a stable system result. A positive damping coefcient, however, causes the amplitude of oscillations to increase with time. Therefore, the system is not stable when the damping coefcient is positive. By examining the real part of the system eigenvalues, the modes that are unstable and likely to produce squeal are revealed. In order to perform the complex eigenvalue analysis using ABAQUS, four main steps are considered. They are given as follows:

r r r r

Nonlinear static analysis for applying brake-line pressure. Nonlinear static analysis to impose rotational speed on the disc. Normal mode analysis to extract natural frequency of an undamped system. Complex eigenvalue analysis that incorporates the effect of friction coupling.

A stability analysis using a complex eigenvalue analysis is examined in the following section.

Squeal Prediction Results

In this study, a stability analysis using a complex eigenvalue analysis is examined between 1 and 10 kHz with brake-line pressure of 0.7 MPa and a rotational speed of 5 rad/s in order to predict the squeal occurrence of the disc brake. The positive real parts of the complex eigenvalues indicate the degree of instability of the disc brake assembly and reect the likelihood of squeal occurrence. Complex eigenvalues with positive real parts are identied as unstable modes. The results of the complex eigenvalue analysis are displayed on a complex plane, as shown in Fig. 5. No other sources of damping are specied in the baseline case. The mode of frequency range is listed on the vertical axis, and the horizontal axis represents the real part of the complex eigenvalue, which is the index of the system instability. All of the frequencies have zero damping (on the imaginary axis) except a few pairs of frequencies that have been coupled and form a stable/unstable pair. In this case, there are ve unstable frequencies predicted at 2,777, 7,573, 8,530, 9,453, and 9,722 Hz.

STABILITY ANALYSIS
The governing equation of the system is Mu + Cu + Ku = 0 [1]

where M is the mass matrix; C is the damping matrix, which can include friction-induced damping effects as well as material damping contribution; and K is the unsymmetric (due to friction) stiffness matrix. This unsymmetrical stiffness matrix leads to both complex eigenvalues and eigenvectors y. u is the displacement vector. Because of friction, the stiffness matrix has specic properties: K = KStructure + KFriction [2]

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10000

8000

Frequency (Hz)

6000

4000

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2000

0 -150 -100 -50 0 Real Part

Fig. 5Predicted unstable frequencies for the baseline model. (color gure available online).

50

100

150

Verication of the Predicted Results

By comparing the CEA results with squeal test results, it was found that only three experimental squeal frequencies were close to the predicted frequencies. Utilizing complex eigenvalue analysis resulted in missing one experimental squeal frequency at 1,438 Hz and predicted more unstable frequencies than experimental at 9,453 and 9,722 Hz. Similar conclusions were reached by Chen (16). Therefore, improvement of CEA is required in order to reduce the difference between numerical and experimental results. To overcome the limitations of CEA and increase the prediction accuracy, three improvement tools will be considered as follows:

1. The rst improvement was performed considering the inuence of positive damping (friction damping) along with a constant friction coefcient to reduce overpredictions. The positive damping term in ABAQUS was activated. 2. The second improvement was performed considering the effect of negative frictionvelocity slope (negative damping), which is considered as one mechanism of squeal noise. In order to activate this effect, two values of friction coefcient were considered: the static friction coefcient s = 0.65 and the dynamic friction coefcient d = 0.5 measured at speed 5 rad/s. However, it is well known that the negative frictionvelocity slope mechanism of vibration formation is

not dependent on the coefcient of friction (Chen and Zhou (31)). 3. The third improvement was performed considering the real pad surface topography, which was measured using a portable stylus-type prolometer (Taylor Hobson Surtronic 3+). The prolometer had a microprocessor and a digital scale indicator that was used to measure and provide readings of the surface. In this study, the roughness parameter considered was surface average height (Ra), which can be measured directly at any point on the surface. The surface height of the brake pad was measured by considering the same node mapping obtained from FE model. By measuring average node height, the data were used to adjust the axial coordinates of the nodes of the pad surface in the FE model by moving the node positions in the FE model. A series of experiments was performed to determine surface parameters of the pad/disc assembly using a portable stylustype prolometer as explained above and were implemented in ABAQUS by user-dened subroutine FRIC. Surface measurements of a brand new pad/disc assembly were made before starting the experiment. A series of surface measurements (with constant exploration length) was made and assessment was based on the mean values of these parameters. The asperity summits were assumed to be spherical and the mean radius p of the pad surface and d of the disc surface were computed. The mean radius of asperities and the mean standard deviation of asperities of

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TABLE 5AVERAGE DATA OF THE MEASURED SURFACES Surface Parameters Rd (m) Rp (m) p (m) d (m) (m) (m) Pad 14.1 74 158 158 91.13 18.4 Disk 0.53 0.2 214 214 91.13 18.4

the pad/disc contact surfaces are given as: 1 1 1 + , = p d p = (Rp )p , =

2 + 2 p d

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d = (Rd )d

where Rp is the maximum height of prole above mean line, Rd is an r.m.s. parameter corresponding to centerline average, and p and d are the standard deviation of height distribution of asperities for pad and disc surfaces, respectively. Average data of the measured surfaces are given in Table 5. In addition, Fig. 6 shows the 3D residual surface plot of the pad used in one of the tests. The CEA was performed considering the friction damping, negative damping, and real pad surface. Figure 7 shows that the complex results were not symmetrical due to the inclusion of frictional damping. Therefore, complex conjugate pairs were not easily identied. It is found that there are seven unstable squeal frequencies predicted at 1,472, 2,339, 2,773, 5,816, 7,383, 8,706, and 9,471 Hz. Four of these frequencies with out-of-plane modes were quite close to experimental squeal frequencies, and the other predicted frequencies had in-plane modes and could not be recorded, as shown in Fig. 8. Hence, the CEA results with the modication were with a higher condence level to reduce squeal occurrence.

TAGUCHI METHOD
In the present work, a Taguchi technique was integrated to determine the signicant contributions of the material modications and their interactions with other design parameters to reduce the squeal propensity. The disc brake corner consisted of a number of components that were made of different types of materials. The inuence of assembly components on squeal is being studied by researchers through various methodologies. Of all components, the disc, pad, caliper, and anchor bracket are being widely targeted for studies. From the literature and previous works, it is understood that there are different types of materials that are employed to manufacture those components. Hence, in the present study, an attempt was made to determine the inuence of material selection for the brake components through the Taguchi method. From a literature review, different types of materials available on the market used for fabricating these brake components were studied for their effects on squeal; other brake components have been assumed to be constant over the study (23). According to Taguchi, all machines and mechanisms are classied as engineering systems (if they produce a set of responses

Fig. 8Unstable frequencies and mode shapes for the predicted result. (color gure available online).

for a given set of inputs). Those systems can be classied in to two categories: (1) static and (2) dynamic. A dynamic system has signal factors (input from the end user) in addition to control and noise factors, whereas in a static system signal factors are not present. Optimization of materials of disc brake components is a static system. The diagram in Fig. 9 is called a P-diagram. The P means process or product according to Taguchi. In the present work, parameter design was utilized to arrive at the optimum levels for types of materials in order to minimize the squeal occurrence during braking. According to Taguchi, two major tools are employed to achieve any quality goal or any robust design (Phadke (32)). They are

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Fig. 63D surface residual of brake pad.

10000

8000

Frequency (Hz)

6000

4000

2000

0 -150 -100 -50 0 Real Part

Fig. 7Effect of real pad surface including negative and positive damping on predicted results: 1, unstable frequency at 1,472 Hz; 2, unstable frequency at 2,339 Hz; 3, unstable frequency at 2,773 Hz; 4, unstable frequency at 5,816 Hz; 5, unstable frequency at 7,383 Hz; 6, unstable frequency at 8,706 Hz; 7, unstable frequency at 9,471 Hz. (color gure available online).

50

100

150

1. Signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, which measures quality. 2. Orthogonal arrays, which are used to study many parameters simultaneously.

jective of this study was to minimize the squeal occurrence, the smaller-the-better quality characteristic was employed.

Taguchi uses the S/N ratio to measure quality characteristics deviating from the desired value. The S/N ratio characteristics can be divided into three categories: the nominal-the-best, the smaller-the-better, and the larger-the-better. Because the ob-

Selection of Variables and Their Levels

Based on the detailed literature survey, the following parameters were considered for the experiment, as listed in Table 6.

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TABLE 6MATERIAL PARAMETERS AND THEIR LEVELS FOR TAGUCHI METHOD Level Factors Friction material (A) Rotor (B) Caliper (C) Anchor bracket (D) 1 Soft C/C-Sic Aluminum Aluminum 2 Medium Al-MMC Cast Iron Cast Iron 3 Stiff Cast Iron Steel Steel

TABLE 7EXPERIMENTAL LAYOUT USING TAGUCHI L9 ARRAY Friction Material (A) 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 Anchor Bracket (D) 1 2 3 3 1 2 2 3 1
Fig. 10Main effects plot.

Test 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Rotor (B) 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

Caliper (C) 1 2 3 2 3 1 3 1 2

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where MSD is the mean square deviation for the output characteristic. MSD for the smaller-the-better quality characteristic is calculated by the following equation, MSD = 1 N
n i =1

Yi2

[6]

where Yi is the squeal response (damping ratio) from which the S/N ratio is computed. For the ith test, n denotes the number of tests and N is the total number of data points. The function -log is a monotonically decreasing one, which means that we should maximize the S/N value. The S/N values were calculated using Eqs. [5] and [6]. Table 8 shows the response table for S/N ratios using the smaller-the-better approach.

Results and Discussion

From Table 9 and from the main effects plot for the S/N ratio (Fig. 10), it is observed that A3-B2-C3-D2 and A3-B2-C3-D3 are the optimum combinations for minimum squeal. Similarly, A1B1-C1-D2 is the combination for maximum squeal. These combinations were not included in the experimental runs. Three sets of materials were tested and the results compared for the minimum squeal that showed perfect agreement with experimental results. The results are listed in Table 9. A comparison of experimental (measured) results and the FE analysis (predicted) results are also shown graphically in Fig. 11. Thus, the adequacy of the approach for prediction of squeal was veried.

Fig. 9P-diagram of disc brake squeal system.

Taguchis Experiments, Data Collection and Analysis

Experiments were conducted as per the Taguchi L9 orthogonal array to identify the most signicant variables by ranking them with respect to their relative impact on the squeal occurrence. The L9 orthogonal array consisted of four control parameters at three levels, as shown in Table 7. The S/N ratio is given by: = 10 log (MSD) [5]

TABLE 8RESPONSE TABLE FOR S/N RATIOS USING SMALLER-THE-BETTER Level 1 2 3 Delta Rank Friction Material (A) 22.26 15.67 13.33 8.93 1 Rotor (B) 17.93 15.45 17.87 2.48 2 Caliper (C) 17.68 17.72 15.87 1.85 3 Anchor Bracket (D) 16.31 18.11 16.84 1.79 4

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TABLE 9VERIFICATION EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Validation Run 1 2 3 Pad 0.5 4 4 Rotor C/C-SiC Al-MMC Al-MMC Caliper Aluminum Steel Steel Bracket Cast Steel Aluminum S/N Ratio 24.71 11.49 10.23 Predicted Squeal 15 3.33 2.33 Measured Squeal 16 3 3 Difference 1 0.66 0.66

The results showed that the most signicant improvement in brake squeal performance could be achieved by using a combination of rotor material from Rotar Material (Al-MMC), cast iron caliper and friction material with elastic properties 2.6 GPa. It was also seen that the pad friction material contributed 56% of the total system instability (generation squeal). The rotor material contributed 22% of the system instability. Caliper and bracket materials contributed 11% each.

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REFERENCES
Fig. 11Comparison between predicted (series 1) and measured (series 2) squeal. (color gure available online). (1) Von Wagner, U., Hochlenert, D., and Hagedorn, P. (2007), Minimal Models for Disc Brake Squeal, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 302, pp 527-539. (2) Dai, Y., and Teik, C. L. (2008), Suppression of Brake Squeal Noise Applying Finite Element Brake and Pad Model Enhanced by Spectral-Based Assurance Criteria, Applied Acoustics, 69, pp 196-214. (3) Nouby, M., Mathivanan, D., and Srinivasan, K. (2009), A Combined Approach of Complex Eigenvalue Analysis and Design of Experiments (DOE) to Study Disc Brake Squeal, International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, 1(1), pp 254-271. (4) Chen, F., Tong, H., Chen, S., and Quaglia, R. (2003), On Automotive Disc Brake Squeal, Part IV: Reduction and Prevention, SAE Paper No. 200301-3345. (5) Gesch, E., Tan, M., and Riedel, C. (2005), Brake Squeal Suppression through Structure Design Modications, SAE Paper No. 2005-01-2311. (6) Kung, S. W., Dunlap, K. B., and Ballinger, R. S. (2000), Complex Eigenvalue Analysis for Reducing Low Frequency Brake Squeal, SAE Technical Report 2000-01-0444. (7) Kinkaid, N. M., Reilly, O. M., and Papadopoulos, P. (2003), Automotive Disc Brake Squeal, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 267, pp 105-166. (8) Ouyang, H., Nack, W., Yuan, Y., and Chen, F. (2005), Numerical Analysis of Automotive Disc Brake Squeal: A Review, International Journal of Vehicle Noise, 1(34), pp 207-231. (9) Kung, S.-W., Seltzer, G., and Smith, K. A. (2006), A Study on Low Frequency Brake Squeal, SAE Paper No. 2004-01-2787. (10) Farhang, K., and Lim, A.-L. (2006), A Non-Phenomenological Account of Friction/Vibration Interaction in Rotary Systems, Journal of Tribology, 128, pp 103-112. (11) Liles, G. D. (1989), Analysis of Disc Brake Squeal Using Finite Element Methods, SAE Paper No. 891150. (12) Joe, Y. G., Cha, B. G., Sim, H. J., Lee, H. J., and Oh, J. E. (2008), Analysis of Disc Brake Instability Due to Friction-Induced Vibration Using a Distributed Parameter Model, International Journal of Automotive Technology, 9(2), pp 161-171. (13) Liu, P., Zheng, H., Cai, C., Wang, Y. Y., Lu, C., Ang, K. H., and Liu, G. R. (2007), Analysis of Disc Brake Squeal Using the Complex Eigenvalue Method, Applied Acoustics, 68, pp 603-615. (14) Mario, T. J., Samir, N. Y., and Roberto, J. (2008), Analysis of Brake Squeal Noise Using the Finite Element Method: A Parametric Study, Applied Acoustics, 69, pp 147-162. (15) Ouyang, H., and Abu-Bakar, A. (2006), Complex Eigenvalue Analysis and Dynamic Transient Analysis in Predicting Disc Brake Squeal, International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration, 2(2), pp 143-155. (16) Chen, F. (2009), Automotive Disc Brake Squeal: An Overview, International Journal of Vehicle Design, 51(1/2), pp 167-172. (17) Fieldhouse, J. D., and Steel, W. P. A Study of Brake Noise and the Inuence of the Centre of Pressure at the Disc/Pad Interface, the Coefcient of Friction and Calliper Mounting Geometry, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, 217.

Fig. 12Contributions of material components. (color gure available online).

Contribution of Components
Based on the Taguchi method the S/N ratio contributions of material components were computed and plotted, as shown in Fig. 12. It was found that the pad friction material contributes 56% of the total system instability (generation of squeal), followed by the rotor material, which contributes 22% of the system instability. Caliper and bracket materials contribute 11% each.

CONCLUSIONS
This article presents a methodology for evaluation of different types of materials for components of a disc brake system to reduce squeal generation. Various materials used in practice for manufacturing disc brake components were examined. Initially, the FE model was validated at component and assembly levels. Reasonably good agreement was achieved between predicted and experimental results in terms of dynamic characteristics. Then a stability analysis using a complex eigenvalue analysis was performed and veried with experimental tests. Subsequently, the analysis was integrated with the Taguchi method to determine the contributions of different types of materials and their interaction effects for effective reduction of brake squeal.

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