Technical Paper
Effects of hole layout, braking torque and frictional heat on crack initiation from small holes in one-piece brake discs
2000-06-12
2000-05-0232
Brake discs have some holes in the flange for promoting heat dissipation as well as refreshing the pad surfaces. One-piece brake discs are desirable even for large sizes in order to reduce the production cost. However, cracks exceptionally occurred from some holes in the flange during braking under extremely severe test conditions for one-piece brake discs. On the other hand, no cracks were observed under the same condition for two-piece brake discs consisting of a hub and a flange. The objective of the present work is to show way cracks occur in the case of one-piece brake discs. Cyclic braking tests under extremely severe conditions were carried out using large one-piece brake discs having some hole in their flange. When the number of braking cycles was beyond 300, some tiny cracks occurring around holes were found. They grew in the radial direction of the brake discs.