An investigation of the influence of the wheel spoke type on the convective cooling of the brake disc using the computational fluid dynamics method

Three-dimensional models of detailed wheel assemblies which have different spoke types are established. The effects of the number of spokes and the twist angle of the spokes on the air-flow field and the convective heat transfer of an automobile brake disc are investigated using the computational fluid dynamics method. To validate the numerical approach employed in this paper, two reference experiments were simulated and the calculation results agree with the experimental data well. It can be concluded from this study that the spoke type has a significant influence on the wheel flow field and the convective heat dissipation of the disc. When the twist angle of the spokes is kept at 0 degrees, the convective cooling performance of the disc of a five-spoke wheel is better than that of the baseline and modified designs. When there is a constant number of spokes equal to six, the convective heat dissipation capacity of the disc improves as the twist angle of the spokes increases. An optimized spoke configuration is proposed and it has the best convective cooling performance of all the cases simulated in the present work.