An FEA approach to simulate disc brake wear and airborne particle emissions

Emissions from disc brake wear adversely affect the air quality in cities. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) approaches focussing on the macroscopic wear of pads and rotors can be found in the literature, but none of these take the wear and emission dependence of the local contact pressure and sliding speed into account. The aim of the present study is to further develop an FEA approach for simulation of macroscopic wear and airborne emission to include the dependences of local contact pressure and sliding speed by implementing wear and emission maps obtained by pin-on-disc tribometer tests. Results from a dyno bench test are compared with simulated results. The simulated rotor and pads wear, and airborne emissions are in line with the measured values.