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Motivated by a combination of increasing consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles, more stringent greenhouse gas, and anticipated future Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, automotive manufacturers are working to innovate in all areas of vehicle design to improve fuel efficiency. In addition to improving aerodynamics, enhancing internal combustion engines and transmission technologies, and developing alternative fuel vehicles, reducing vehicle weight by using lighter materials and/or higher strength materials has been identified as one of the strategies in future vehicle development. Weight reduction in vehicle components, subsystems and systems not only reduces the energy needed to overcome inertia forces but also triggers additional mass reduction elsewhere and enables mass reduction in full vehicle levels.

A new method to predict brake squeal occurrence was developed by MSC under contract to Ford Motor Company. The results indicate that the stability characteristics of this disc brake assembly are governed mainly by the frictional properties between the pads and rotor. The stability is achieved when the friction coefficient of the pads is decreasing as the contact force increases. Based on the results, a stable brake system can be obtained without changing the brake structure by incorporating the appropriate frictional coefficient in the brake system. The method developed here can be also used as a tool to test the quality of any brake design in the early design stage.

Brake related warranty costs are a major concern to the automotive industry. Large part of these costs are due to noise, more particularly due to the brake squeal complaints. Computer-aided engineering solutions have attracted a lot of attention from the engineering and development community for more effective brake product development. Recently, three brake squeal analysis methods were implemented on disc type brakes in a vehicle program at Ford. This paper summarizes the results and documents the experience obtained during implementation in the vehicle CAE process.