A molecular dynamics-informed heat partition ratio model for thermal analysis with frictional contact heat

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for obtaining a Molecular Dynamics (MD)-informed heat partition ratio (HPR) to achieve accurate thermal analysis in the finite element method (FEM). The absorbing energy change in a thermal reservoir of each substrate was determined through MD simulations to calculate the amount of heat flux entering each material. Based on this approach, the HPR model was developed and applied to a continuum FEM model. The validity of the proposed HPR model was confirmed by comparing FEM results with experimental data. The comparison demonstrated that the proposed HPR model provided improved predictions of thermal distribution in brake systems. In particular, the disk, which has high thermal conductivity and does not continuously receive heat, showed temperature results similar to those of traditional HPR models. However, the pad was significantly affected by the HPR model, leading to a more accurate prediction of peak temperature and heat transfer timing compared to traditional HPR models. Specifically, the peak temperature of the pad was predicted with an error of 5.8 % in Type A and 0.5 % in Type B compared to experimental results. These findings suggest that the proposed methodology can enhance the accuracy of thermal analysis in various friction systems.