Improved Archard's Wear Law for Residual Fatigue Life of Friction Plate Considering Emergency Braking Conditions

ABSTRACT Residual fatigue life prediction of passenger car brake friction plates under emergency braking is considered important for vehicle safety. The multiphysics coupling among temperature, stress, and wear is often not represented in a unified way. An integrated prediction framework is proposed. The framework combines a three‐dimensional finite element thermomechanical wear simulation, an improved Archard wear law, and the Taguchi quality loss model in present value form. The finite element model describes transient frictional heating, contact stress evolution, and wear accumulation in a ventilated disc brake during emergency braking. The wear volume time response is produced by the simulation. A cubic polynomial wear law is identified from the simulated response and is incorporated into the service quality loss model to represent the triphasic wear evolution and the performance degradation of the friction plates. Stochastic service life and residual life distributions are obtained by applying cumulative failure functions together with the quality loss formulation. The framework can provide a quantitative basis for analyzing how design tolerances, manufacturing deviations and service conditions influence fatigue life, and can support planning of preventive maintenance and reliability improvement for brake friction plates.