Design Improvement of Disc Brake with Guided Pathways for Better Air-Flow

This paper is based on analyzing the airflow characteristics in conventional slotted and drilled disc brake rotors vs a virtual prototype with guided pathways extruded out of the main rotor body with cylindrical fins and curved vanes present between two plates of rotor. SOLIDWORKS 2018 and ANSYS 18.2 was used for modelling and running simulations on both conventional and prototype design. The FEA method is used to find out airflow patterns during spinning of wheels on different time steps. During a motorsport event cars run on a track with both sharp turns and long stretch of road and better braking action can be really advantageous. As brakes are generally aircooled and with continuous braking through an event can raise temperature of rotors quite high which could result many possible circumstances like thermo-elastic vibrations, heating-up of brake fluids, wearing out of rotor surface and also it give rise to thermomechanical stresses which lowers the fatigue life of any component which eventually results in failing or inefficiency on braking system. Better air-flow characteristics potentially have better and faster cooling rate of rotors which will support the idea for this prototype. So, to test how guided pathways in brake rotors affect airflow I have carried out simulation studies on my prototype and compared it with rotors available to purchase. Results of the simulations turned out be better as compared one of most used type of rotor (vanned with slots and drilled holes) as brakes are sucking air themselves. So, this design will work better even if there aren't brake ducts present in car as they are normally found in sports car.