A numerical study of TGV disk brake squeal

X. LORANG, Q.S. NGUYEN

F. MARGIOCCHI, P.E. GAUTIER

Abstract
Disk brakes squeal noise of railway stocks is a source of discomfort for both passengers on trains and
customers in stations. Deeper investigations were necessary to understand this phenomenon. They
showed that squeal is a self excited vibration of the brake and that the emitted noise ranges from
frequencies of 3000 to 17000Hz. It has also been shown that the phenomenon is highly increased when
the train comes to a stop.
In this paper, a numerical strategy to compute the dynamic behavior of the brake is presented. Through a
simplified three dimensional model of the brake, the capability of the strategy is shown and some results
are also discussed.

1 – Introduction
Brakes are one of the most important safety components in train operating condition but the brake squeal
generated by disk brakes is an everyday source of discomfort for the passengers both inside and outside
the train in stations. This is the case in particular for TGV. The develop ment of a refined mechanical
modeling of the phenomenon was carried out in order to understand the mechanism of the squeal
generation. Principles of solutions and noise reduction assessment through the developed models taking
into account the braking noise and the safety will be now possible.

The squeal phenomenon is principally due to a self-excited vibration of the brake components, at high
frequency (from 3kHz to 17kHz), and high intensity (up to 130 dB) [1]. It occurs mainly at low speeds and
is highly increased when the train comes to a station.

In perspective of a global simulation of the phenomenon, a full computational strategy is proposed to get
an numerical estimation of the response. Starting from the governing equations, a space and time
discretization is chosen and justified. Then, the algorithm is applied on a simplified three dimensional
brake model and the solution is analyzed.

2 – Computational strategy
2.1 Governing equations

The train is supposed to run at a constant velocity. The brake system is considered in a Galilean
reference (Figure 1). In a such reference, the pad P is an elastic solid in small deformation.
If denotes the displacement in P, must verify :

(1)
 D

Figure 1 : A brake model

and are respectively density and Hooke’s fourth order tensor. SC is the contact surface.
is a given force on .

is the reference where the rotating elastic disk D is in small deformation. If U denotes the
displacement of a point of the disk, the Cauchy stress is defined by:

In order to write the equations verified by the disk in the Galilean axes, (as it is proposed in [2]) it is
necessary to change variables as follow :

Then, the Cauchy stress gives in the Galilean reference:

The material velocity is :

The change of variables allow us to write the vibration equation of the disk in an “eulerian” form :

(2)

The two weak formulations (1) and (2) give the dynamic behaviour of pad and disk. To complete the
formulation, both solids are coupled by unilateral contact conditions with friction, which are describe
below.
If g denotes the gap between the pad and disk on the contact zone, and if is the sliding
velocity:

n and nP are respectively the outward normal of the disk and the pad.

The unilateral contact relations are :

(3)

The friction relations are :

,
or equivalently,
, (4)

Because the phenomenon of interest is when the train is entering in the station at low speed, a possible
approximation A is to retain only the rotation velocity in the material velocity. We obtain then :

The friction coefficient has been chosen constant.

2.2 Space and time discretization

After a classical spatial discretization by the finite element method, the equations (1) and (2) gives in the
discrete form :

(5)

{u} is the global displacement vector and {RC} is the contact reaction vector.
To model physical dissipation in brake elements, a Rayleigh damping model is introduced. (5) becomes
then:

(6)

This differential system governs the dynamic evolution of the discrete problem in the assumption of a
regular evolution. Because of unilateral conditions, shocks can happen between disk and pads. The
continuity of the velocity is not ensured in this case. To avoid numerical problems, a first order integration
algorithm is used for the time discretization of the following equation [3,4,5] :

To compute the solution on [0;T], the previous equations are written on discrete intervals I = [t i;ti+1]. The
numerical scheme is obtained using a “θ method” to approximate the integrals on I. (h = ti+1-ti )
 i+1 i
Then, if the contact forces are supposed known at t and the kinematic quantities at t , the velocity can be
calculated by

(7)

and displacements updated by

(8)

To solve the non linear dynamic problem, it is necessary to take into account the contact with friction
conditions written in (3,4).
The unilateral contact conditions (3) can also be formulated as follow [5,6]:

The frictional conditions (4) can also be formulated as follows [5,6]:

This new formulation of the contact friction conditions allow us to formulate a correction procedure : For a
fixed step i in (7), the velocities and contact reactions are unknown. A prediction / correction procedure is
used. For a given contact reaction, we make a prediction solving the linear system (7), and then a
correction is performed. This procedure is repeated until convergence is obtained.
Rn and Rt of a candidate node can be extracted from the global contact reaction vector {Rc}.
At a sub step k , the correction is proceed as follow :

For compatibility reasons between gap and normal velocity (see [4]), it has been chosen to evaluate the
gap at a future time :

and the sliding velocities are evaluated as follows

This numerical scheme has been used to compute the dynamical response of a simplified brake model.
Some results are presented below in the next section.

3 – Results on a simplified three dimensional case

On the Figure 2 is presented a finite element model of a simplified brake model. It is composed of 3
solids: one disk and two cylindrical pads. The disk is clamped on the internal cylinder and the system is
loaded imposing displacements on both external plans of pads. This load is equivalent to an axial force of
8000 N. The disk is rotating at 2,5 rad/s. The friction coefficient is 0,35. In order to compute the dynamical
response, the steady sliding solution is first calculated and is used as an initial condition for the dynamical
computation. The approximation A has been retained for the calculation.

On the figure 3 the normal velocity of a node on the planar surface of the disk far from the contact zone is
presented. The solution has been computed for 0.5 seconds. We can observe that the velocity level is
about 80 mm/s. The figure 5 shows the fast Fourier transform of the normal velocity on the global window.
This figure shows that the solution is composed of 4 mains frequencies. The non-linear dynamic solution
is characterized by a complex contact status evolution : a “stick – slip – separation” regime appear for
some nodes.

Figure 2 : The finite element model of a simplified 3D case

Figure 3 : Normal velocity versus time

3 – Conclusion

A computational strategy has been proposed for the evaluation of the dynamic response of TGV disk
brake squeal. The applicability of the method has been showed on a simplified three dimensional brake
system. It has been seen that the time response is mainly composed of four frequencies. A future work is
to apply this methodology on a more realistic TGV brake system and to compare the results with some
measurements.
 Figure 5 : Fast Fourier Transform of the normal velocity

References
[1] X. Lorang, F. Foy-Margiocchi, Q.S. Nguyen, P.E. Gautier “TGV disc brake squeal”, Journal of
Sound and Vibration, Accepted 26 august 2005.

[2] F. Moirot, Q.S. Nguyen “Brake squeal: a problem of flutter instability of the steady sliding solution
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[3] M. Wronski, M. Jean “Some computational aspects of structural dynamics problems with frictional
contact”, Contact Mechanics, Edited by M. Raous et al., Plenum Press, New York, 1995.

[4] D. Vola, E. Pratt, M. Jean, M. Raous “Consistent time discretization for a dynamical frictional
contact problem and complementarity techniques”, Revue européenne des elements finis, Volume 7, n°1-
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(1999) 235-257.

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