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This paper presents a new test system that combines a brake inertial dynamometer with a multi-axis vibration test stand. In addition, the system reproduces data collected directly from road tests, rather than prescribed or random data. Several areas of NVH work on wheel-end components can benefit form combining the effects of vibration and dynamometery without including the necessary remaining vehicle parts or the uncontrollable aspects of vehicle road or track tests. This paper addresses the design, assembly, operation, and success at reproducing road data on the Road Load Dynamometer. This system reproduces road data accurately, with greater repeatability, and with the added benefit of greater accessibility to components under test than road or track tests.

This paper illustrates the importance of road vibration in the study of disc thickness variation generation in disc brake rotors, showing that laboratory conditions must include vibration as well as realistic reproductions of speeds, pressures, and inertia, etc. Such conditions are made possible with the Bosch Road Load Dynamometer (RLD). A related paper, Road Load Dynamometer: Combining Brake Dynamometry with Multi-Axis Road Vibration, SAE 2003-01-1638, showed that the RLD could accurately and repeatedly reproduce field conditions, but did not contain disc thickness variation (DTV) generation data. This paper contrasts rotor wear data for a controlled experiment on the RLD, with and without vibrational input. In the control group, DTV generation data comparable to vehicle test results were recreated. In the experimental group, similar hardware was subjected to the same tests except for the absence of vibration input.