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Brake rotor design plays a very important role in brake cooling. As discussed in a previous paper [1], brake rotor design is a central piece of brake system cooling optimization. Based on this fact, a systematic effort has been made to develop a high flow rate brake rotor by using analytical and computational fluid mechanics tools The rotor development described in this paper consists of three stages: 1. rotor configuration design; 2 selection of the number of vanes (webs); 3. flow passage design. Development in stages 1 and 2 is guided by analytical fluid mechanics while that in stage 3 is pursued by using computational fluid dynamics tool supported by theoretical fluid mechanics. The resulted patented design [2] of the brake rotor demonstrates its high aerodynamics performance: the cooling flow rate through the rotor is increased by 42% compared with the conventional rotor and there is no additional manufacturing complexity.

Brake cooling is a very important consideration in the brake system design. To achieve effective cooling, an in-depth understanding of the brake cooling flow phenomena is essential. A systematic method for the engineering process of optimizing brake cooling design is developed in this study. The process consists of three phases. The first phase is brake rotor flow analysis in a rotating reference frame to simulate the flow motion through the brake rotor. The second phase is the vehicle external/underbody flow analysis which provides the necessary understanding of flow field surrounding brake systems for subsequent component optimization. The third phase is the design optimization to achieve the high performance brake cooling design. In this paper, the details of the three phase process is first presented and the technology involved is also discussed. Then, as the first phase of the process, a three dimensional turbulent flow field in a rotating brake rotor is analyzed.