Prognostic Thermal Modeling and Control of a Carbon–Ceramic Brake Disc for Electric Sports Cars under Racetrack Conditions

Carbon–ceramic brake discs in high-performance electric sports cars are vulnerable to heat fade under racetrack conditions, where repeated high-speed braking can raise disc temperature above the material’s safe limit of 1200°C. Three-dimensional finite-volume analysis is accurate but inefficient for long transient track events. To improve efficiency, a one-dimensional lumped capacitance method (LCM) is proposed to predict brake disc temperature evolution. A speed-dependent cooling coefficient links disc thermal response to vehicle operating conditions. The model is validated against wheel-end temperature measurements of sports cars on the Zhuzhou International Circuit and Nürburgring Nordschleife Circuit. It is then used to assess three thermal control measures: an external air director, increased disc thermal mass, and higher regenerative braking contribution. The model reproduces the measured trend with acceptable error and predicts that the baseline disc temperature can peak at 1445°C in a four-lap Zhuzhou scenario and 1540°C in a Nürburgring scenario. The air director provides substantial cooling but is insufficient on its own. A system-level safe temperature of 1050°C is achieved only when the disc size is increased to 410 mm × 40 mm and regenerative braking deceleration is raised to at least 0.1 g in combination with the air director scheme. The proposed LCM provides a practical and computationally efficient tool for early-stage brake thermal design of sports cars.