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For brake performance measurements, many standardized test procedures and machines were developed. A characteristic problem of these highly complex machines is the occurrence of measurement uncertainties, which usually are not predictable and rather difficult to explain. One part of explanations is driven by the huge but not yet complete list of influencing factors for the high load friction processes. Another part of explanations is given by f.i. manufacturing tolerances, load histories of machines and specimens and so on. A systematic investigation of these influences is very time-consuming and could be difficult to realize on professional test-machines [1]. On the other hand, simple laboratory tribometers are rather good for sensitivity investigations in principle but the friction systems are too far from the real system.

The Automated Universal Tribotester (AUT) is developed by the Institute of Dynamics and Vibrations (TU Braunschweig) and represents a reduced scale brake dynamometer. The setup is based on the pin-on-disc principle and the down-scaled test specimen are brought to contact to the disc and loaded via the specifically designed load unit. The AUT’s load unit is designed as a combination of parallel and serial leaf springs, resulting in a friction free motion. The stiffnesses in radial and tangential directions are much higher than in normal orientation. For the investigation of wear debris over time, changes in loads (e.g. forces, speeds, temperatures) are applied. Those varying loads result in tilting of the contact surface of the test specimen due to small elastic deformations. A change of the contact area is inevitable, and long time periods are needed to adopt the contact area to the new conditions. This prevents from investigating fast changes in the above mentioned loads.

The dynamics and, in particular, the NVH phenomena in brakes are still in the focus of research. Recent investigations of for example Rhee et al. show two principal vibrational forms of the linings on the rotor [1]. The first form is characterized by vibrations where both linings are in-phase (minimal differential torque between the inner pad and the outer pad). This produces in-plane vibrations of the rotor and results in high-frequency squealing events in the brake. The second form is an antiphase vibration of the brake linings with respect to each other (increased differential torque between the inner pad and the outer pad). This produce directly out-of-plane vibrational modes of the disc, which results in lower-frequency caliper and rotor oscillations. One hypothesis is that different wear densities of the linings essentially characterize the two vibrational modes. The wear behavior is not taken into consideration of this paper as it will be discussed in further publications.

In recent years, characteristic structures in the boundary layer of high-load contacts such as brakes have been reported, which have an important impact on the dynamics of the tribological contact. Usually, local assumptions concerning the friction of these patches are used to reach global conclusions about the brake system. Several numerical methods (e.g. Cellular Automata) have been developed which make use of such assumptions. The validation of these methods through measured data tends to be laborious and costly. Sprag-Slip elements are friction elements which are typically considered to exclusively undergo static friction. Such elements have been sporadically utilized towards describing friction in brake applications. In this paper, many locally distributed Sprag-Slip elements are used to model the global dynamics of braking friction. The results show good agreement with the measured characteristics of brakes.