The coefficient of friction (COF) is one of the most important parameters to evaluate the performance of a brake system. To design proper brake systems, it is important to know the COF when estimating the brake force and resulting torque. It is challenging to simulate the COF since friction in disc brakes is a complex phenomenon that depends on several parameters such as sliding velocity, contact pressure, materials, and temperatures, etc. There is a lack of studies found in the literature focusing on simulation of the COF for a full brake system based on tribometer material characterization. The aim of this work is therefore to investigate the possibility to use a finite element analysis (FEA) approach combined with a COF pv-map to compute the global COF of a disc brake system. The local COF is determined from a pv-map for each local sliding velocity and contact pressure determined by the FEA. Knowing the local COF, the braking force of the entire brake system and the global COF can be evaluated. Results obtained by the simulation are compared with dyno bench test of the same brake system to investigate the validity of the simulation approach. Results show that the simulation is perfectly in line with the experimental measurements in terms of in-stop COF development, but slightly higher with a positive offset for every braking.

The coefficient of friction (COF) is an important parameter when evaluating brake system performance. It is complex to predict friction due to its dependence on parameters, such as sliding velocity, contact pressure, temperature, and friction material mixtures. The aim of this work is to evaluate the macroscopic COF of a disc brake system under specific braking conditions by a meso-scale approach, using a cellular automaton simulation where the friction material mixture is modelled starting from its basic components. The influence of the local components in contact is taken into account. Simulated COF values are in line with the experimental values.

The coefficient of friction (COF) is one of the core factors in the evaluation of brake system performance. It is challenging to predict the COF, since it is strongly influenced by several parameters such as contact pressure (p), slip rate (v) and temperature (T) that depend on the driving conditions. There is a need for better models to describe how the brake friction varies under different driving conditions. The purpose of this research is to study the possibility of using 3D friction pvT-maps to estimate the COF of a disc brake system under different driving conditions. The 3D friction pvT-maps are created by filtering results of material tests conducted in a mini-dyno inertia bench. The COF measured under different driving cycles in an inertia dyno bench with the full brake system are compared with the COF estimated by the friction maps coming from the reduced scale dyno bench to investigate the validity of the simulation approach. This study shows that mini dyno bench is suitable to obtain a tribological characterization of the friction pad–disc rotor contact pair and is able to replace the full inertia dyno bench to investigate the brake system performance.