Search Results

Industry and academia agree that brake squeal is a nonlinear phenomenon. Consequently, using solely linear finite-element (FE) models and assessing the tendency of a brake system to squeal exclusively on the stability of the trivial solution is not appropriate. However, the latter approach - in the brake community known as complex eigenvalue analysis (CEA) - is extensively used in industry. Until now, nonlinear simulation approaches considering existence and stability of periodic solutions are mostly limited to minimal models. Among the variety of reasons for this the complexity of large-scale nonlinear models as well as the identification of nonlinear material and system parameters are crucial. This contribution discusses the relevance of nonlinearities in friction brake noise, vibration, harshness (NVH) and presents a novel simulation approach for brake squeal.

The development process of automotive brakes is known to be challenging and time-consuming. It is an iterative process consisting of interplay between brake squeal simulation and extensive experimental investigations of the brake system at the test rig and in the vehicle. In this context, the complex eigenvalue analysis (CEA) of linearized FE models is a part of standard development process of brake systems. Nevertheless this linear analysis has not reached the status of a predictive tool yet, remaining a tool accompanying experimental investigations of the brake system only. Possible reasons may be inadequate simplifications of frictional contact, damping effects and friction material modeling on one hand and insufficiencies of the mathematical mechanical models themselves, i.e. linear vs. nonlinear stability analyses on the other hand. The extensive experimental investigations apply time consuming standard test procedures and need efficiency improvement.