Topology Analysis of Bicycle Rim Brake Pad to Improve Braking Performance

Abstract

Various parameters of rubber brake pad tribology will affect the braking performance of a rim brake system of a bicycle. Out of those, three main parameters are contact length of brake pad, surface topology of friction surface, and the thickness of rim brake pad. the goals of this study are to improve the braking performance of rim brakes to have better friction performance while retaining its simplicity of manufacturing and to investigate the effect on friction performance through the modifications of external dimensions and surface topology of rim brakes. Moreover, through this study, it can reveal which topology modifications of the rubber brake pad will have the most significance effect towards friction performance. Experimental measurement is used to obtain the friction properties and then parametric study was carried out numerically to obtain the braking performance of the rubber brake pad. the parametric study was simulated in ANSYS Transient Structural analysis. Taguchi design method was used for quantitatively identifying the right inputs and parameter levels. the results showed that smaller groove and smaller width contribute to higher friction performance. Stress concentration occurs at the edge of groove; hence, by reducing number of groove, it allows higher braking force to be generated. Location of groove concentration appears to have insignificance effect to the friction performance. Through the topology modifications, it improves the braking performance by 3%. As for external dimension, thick rubber brake pad will not demonstrate any improvement and longer contact length will demonstrate higher friction force. However, it has to be bounded by the practicality of the dimension. Upon modifications at the external dimension, it has an improvement of 64% in braking performance.