Thermal analysis of locomotive wheel-mounted brake disc

In recent decades the improvement of the braking performances are required due to high speed of trains. The generated frictional heat, during braking operation causes several negative effects on the brake system such as brake fade, premature wear, thermal cracks and disc thickness variation. It is then important to determine the temperature field of the brake disc. In the present work, thermal analysis of the wheel-mounted brake disc R920K for the ER24PC locomotive is investigated. The brake disc and fluid zone are simulated as a 3D model with a thermal coupling boundary condition. The braking process is simulated in laboratory and the experimental data are used to verify the simulation results. During the braking, the maximum temperature was observed in the middle of braking process instead of the braking end point. Moreover, a large lagging was observed for fins temperature which renders no cooling at the beginning of the braking. ► At each time step the local HTC was calculated, and used for disc thermal analysis. ► Numerical results compare well with experimental data. ► Lagging effect renders no cooling at the beginning of the braking. ► Disc surface temperatures increased with increasing braking time, and then decreased.