Disc-Plate Squeal Investigation Using Finite Element Software: Study and Compare

Brake squeal is an example of noise caused by vibrations induced by contact forces. During brake operation, the contact between the pad and the disc can induce a dynamic instability in the system. The brake squeal which occurs in the frequency range of 1-20 kHz is investigated with the plate on disc as a new model that's presented in this paper to study the instability of the system. The squeal events treated in this paper were identified to be dynamic instabilities of the brake system. The ANSYS product finite element software in 3-D with Matrix27 as a contact element was used to simulate the behavior of the plate-disc system. Coulomb's friction was used at the contact surface with a constant coefficient value. The contact stiffness and the friction coefficient were changed during the simulation in order to analyze the occurrence of the squeal. For this application, temporal simulations showed that separation occurred between surfaces, confirmation of instabilities. It also showed that, the vibrations responsible for the instability were localized in the contact properties. The mode responsible for squealing was obtained by using the modal analysis of the plate-disc system and assuming that the interface was stuck. The result has shown that the maximum degree of instability appeared as a result of changing the contact stiffness effect rather than changing the friction coefficient.