| Summary: | Brake squeal is an old and well-known problem in the vehicle industry and is a frequent source for customer complain. Although, brake squeal is not usually affecting the performance of the brakes, it is still important to address the problem and to predict the brakes tendency to squeal on an early stage in the design process. Brake squeal is usually defined as a sustained, high-frequency vibration of the brake components, due to the braking action. By using simulation in finite element (FE) method it should be possible to predict at what frequencies the brakes tend to emit sound. The method chosen for the analysis was the complex eigenvalues analysis (CEA) method, since it is a well-known tool to predict unstable modes in FE analysis. The results from the CEA were evaluated against measured data from an earlier study. Even though there are four main mechanism formulated in order to explain the up come of squeal, the main focus in this project was modal coupling, since it is the main mechanism in the CEA. A validation of the key components in model was performed before the analysis, in order to achieve better correlation between the FE model and reality. A parametric study was conducted with the CEA, to investigate how material properties and operating parameters effected the brakes tendency to squeal. The following parameters was included in the analysis; coefficient of friction, brake force, damping, rotational velocity, and Young’s modulus for different components. The result from the CEA did not exactly reproduce the noise frequencies captured in experimental tests. The discrepancy is believed to mainly be due to problems in the calibration process of the components in the model. The result did however show that the most effective way to reduce the brakes tendency for squeal was to lower the coefficient of friction. The effect of varying the Young’s modulus different components showed inconsistent results on the tendency to squeal. By adding damping one of the main disadvantages for the CEA, which the over-prediction of the number of unstable modes, where minimized.
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