The braking system of an FSAE Electric Vehicle operates under highly transient thermal and mechanical conditions, where frictional heating, material behavior, and heat dissipation strongly influence performance and reliability. During repeated or high-energy braking events, rotor and pad temperatures can rise rapidly, altering the effective coefficient of friction and therefore modifying brake torque generation, stopping distance, and vehicle deceleration. Understanding these temperature-dependent effects is essential for accurate brake modeling, safe design margins, and competition performance.
MAE
2025-2026
Winter
Spring
Internally Mentored (faculty, staff, TA)
Formula Friction: Brake Rotor Dynamometer
Summary
Technical Approach/Methodology
To investigate these variables, a brake dynamometer has been developed that mounts directly to a internally developed bench test setup. The system will apply controlled braking torque to a motor-actuated rotor while continuously measuring temperature, braking time, and deceleration behavior. By evaluating heating and cooling cycles and correlating them with braking response, the experiment will quantify how the coefficient of kinetic friction varies with temperature and determine cooling rates across operating conditions. These results will provide empirical data for predicting friction torque, validating thermal assumptions, and refining maximum deceleration models for the braking system
Outcomes
Testing the effectiveness of the brake system on an FSAE vehicle requires a number of systems working in parallel. The brake dynamometer is modular and all components are easily installable to any compatible FSAE vehicle. Sensors are needed to gather the data that is required to analyze the brakes operation. The system has an RPM, temperature, and pressure sensor developed onto the bench test setup. They measure the drive shaft’s angular velocity, brake rotor temperature, and line pressure, respectively. With the sensors and internal HTML page, the system has a program that collects and stores the data in a way that is useful for FSAE students to analyze and develop their brake rotors.
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