The Simulation Program BRAKE


Table of Contents


Stefen Merkle
PRZ- TU-Berlin

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1. Brief global description

In cooperation with the department of gearing and transmission technology at the Technical University of Berlin the idea was developed to create an application with which the thermal behaviour of brake systems could be analysed by simulating stopping processes. This application should be able to display the brake and colour it referring to its temperature. A graph which shows the temperature over the passed time was demanded, too. Another expected feature was to let BRAKE be as flexible as possible for describing the simulation by parameters.

2. Scientific content - important features

BRAKE simulates the thermodynamic behaviour of brake systems.

This application can be used for teaching the conception of friction systems as well as for research and development of new or existing brake systems.

3. Didactical approach

In lectures students get experience with:

Research and development are supported by BRAKE in the following way:

4. Implementation

BRAKE simulates the thermodynamic processes in a brake. Therefore a model of the disc of the brake must be created. This is done by describing the disc in polar coordinates where the disc is divided into layers, tracks and sectors.

The computation of the diffusion of heat within the disc is done by a differential method.

5. Target group

BRAKE is a useful tool for teaching the conception of friction systems and for research and development of brake systems.

6. Evaluation

The application actually is tested by the researchers at the department of gearing and transmission technology. They are actually trying to include it into the curriculum where they teach the fundamentals of brake systems. The students shall try to develop a parametrization for a brake system that has to fulfil specified requirements.