Research on the Influence of Floating Brake Pad Structure on the Friction Interface Performance of Disk Brake

Abstract

The friction contact state of the brake friction interface of high-speed trains in the braking process affects the braking efficiency, which in turn affects the braking safety and the service life of the components. This article focuses on the heat and stress distribution at the friction interface under the action of a floating brake pad structure. A floating brake pad structure comprising two sets of spherical joint structure is introduced. The multibody structure and rigid–flexible coupling effects of the floating brake pad are considered. Furthermore, a full reproduction flexible thermomechanical coupling braking model in the floating brake pad structure is constructed. The accuracy of the model is validated by conducting tests on a 1:1-scale high-speed train brake test bench. The temperature and stress distribution of the fixed/floating brake pad structure at 80 km/h are studied accordingly. The results show that in accordance with the temperature outcomes derived from the simulation model, the observed temperature variations in the test results demonstrate an average error of 8.93%. The action of the floating brake pad resulted in a significant reduction of 36.99% in the maximum surface temperature of the brake pad, as well as a reduction of 30.91% in the maximum stress. The temperature of the brake disk surface is decreased by 32.01%, while the maximum stress experienced a decrease of 30.65%. The contact area of the friction interface is increased by 100%. The floating brake pad demonstrates a more uniform distribution and consistent gradient of temperature and stress across its friction interface in comparison to the fixed brake pad.

HIGHLIGHTS

1. The thermomechanical coupling effect of friction interface and multibody interaction in the floating brake pad structure are considered. A full reproduction flexible thermomechanical coupling braking model with the floating brake pad structure is established.

2. The connection between the movement changes of the components of the floating brake plate and the heat–force coupling state of the brake friction interface is established. The correlation between the dynamic behavior of different components of a floating brake pad structure during braking and the thermomechanical coupling state at the friction interface is established.

3. The floating type brake pad is verified through simulation, confirming its effective enhancement of the contact area at the braking interface. Consequently, this improvement leads to enhanced braking performance and prolonged service life for both the brake pad and the disk.

Keywords:

• Floating brake pad
• friction interface
• multibody structure
• rigid–flexible coupling
• thermomechanical coupling

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Zhihua Sha, Xin Li, Chengwei Song, Li Shi, Jian Yin, Yu Liu, and Shengfang Zhang. The first draft of the article was written by Xin Li and Li Shi, and all authors commented on subsequent versions of the article. Embellishment of the article was by Zhihua Sha, Xin Li, and Li Shi. The test equipment, computer workstation, and mangement were handled by Shengfang Zhang. All authors read and approved the final article.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships, which may be considered as potential competing interests: Zhihua Sha, Li Shi, Xin Li, Jian Yin, Yu Liu, and Shengfang Zhang have a patent pending to them. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Statement of originality

The proposed content are original and not involving plagiarism with copyright infringement issues.

I hereby declare and guarantee those are true, as claimed.

I would like to declare on behalf of my coauthors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part.

Novelty statement

Currently, most high-speed trains utilize a floating brake pad structure. However, scholars are not clear about the underlying mechanisms and processes involved. Limited research has been conducted on the friction process and mechanism of the overall floating brake pad structure at the friction interface. We established a full reproduction analytical model of thermomechanical coupling of the brake disk/pad with a floating brake pad structure considering multibody movement and rigid–flexible coupling. We confirmed for the first time through establishing a simulation model that the floating brake pad structure has a significant effect on improving the friction state of the braking interface and increasing the service life of brake systems compared to the fixed brake pad structure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by: 1. National Natural Science Foundation of China (52375169), to Zhihua Sha. 2. Key Research and Development Program of Liaoning Province (2022JH2/101300228), to Shengfang Zhang. 3. Doctoral Startup Foundation Project of Liaoning Province(2022-BS-260), to Jian Yin.