Application of Fractional Derivatives in Thermal Analysis of Disk Brakes

This paper presents a Fractional Derivative Approach for thermal analysis of disk brakes. In this research, the problem is idealized as one-dimensional. The formulation developed contains fractional semi integral and derivative expressions, which provide an easy approach to compute friction surface temperature and heat flux as functions of time. Given the heat flux, the formulation provides a means to compute the surface temperature, and given the surface temperature, it provides a means to compute surface heat flux. A least square method is presented to smooth out the temperature curve and eliminate/reduce the effect of statistical variations in temperature due to measurement errors. It is shown that the integer power series approach to consider simple polynomials for least square purposes can lead to significant error. In contrast, the polynomials considered here contain fractional power terms. The formulation is extended to account for convective heat loss from the side surfaces. Using a simulated experiment, it is also shown that the present formulation predicts accurate values for the surface heat flux. Results of this study compare well with analytical and experimental results.