Finite Element Analysis of Automotive Drum Brake for Prediction of Wear of Friction Liner

Abstract

Brake is a crucial part of an automobile, whose performance evaluation is always, been an important task industry people are looking for. The evaluation of performance of the brake experimentally is very complex and un-economical for each and every time. This led to development of a model using soft-computing to accurately assess the brake every time. This paper presents development of such a model for drum brake using FEA and experimentally validating it for its feasibility and reliability. An automotive drum brake is chosen for study and a FEA model is developed, deformation characteristics of the brake liner surface is drawn from it and presented in terms of mean nodal height at twenty different points on its surface. The brake liner with available material (composition) is subjected to experimentation using a test set up and its surface wear is measured using a height gauge and a holding fixture. Percentage of wear is evaluated by considering initial height (new surface) and final height (weared surface). The developed FEA model is remarkably close to the exact conditions, which can be confirmed through the experimental results.