Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

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Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

An experimental study of interior vehicle roughness noise from disc brake systems
Eskil Lindberg , Nils-Erik Hrlin 1, Peter Gransson 2
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering, MWL The Marcus Wallenberg Laboratory for Sound and Vibration Research,
10044 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 February 2012
Received in revised form 2 July 2012
Accepted 20 July 2012
Available online 24 October 2012
Keywords:
Acoustic emission
Disc brake
Surface topography
Wire brush
Roughness noise
Rubbing noise

a b s t r a c t
An experimental study of the friction-induced noise generated by the disc brake system of a passenger
car is presented. In particular, the brake noise usually referred to as wire brush or roughness noise is
studied. This is, in terms of frequency spectral content a broadband phenomenon, resulting from the
interaction of multiple asperities in the tribological contact. A new experimental method for measurements of disc brake roughness noise is proposed, and is used in a lab environment where the vehicle
speed and the brake pressure are accurately controlled. The aim is to study the inuence of vehicle speed
and brake pressure on the roughness noise inside the vehicle. It is shown for the specic test case that the
transmission from the source to the interior is a vibro-acoustic structure-borne phenomenon. Measurements show that there is a, as expected, strong correlation between increased interior noise and both
increased vehicle speed and brake pressure.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The eld of friction-induced vibrations is a wide topic. The subject spans from the pleasant sound of the violin bow dynamics to
the disasters of earthquakes created by tectonic plate interaction
[1,2]. A friction force is a non-conservative entity and is governed
by the tangential stresses created by the relative motion of two
bodies [3]. Friction forces may, in terms of a micro-structural view
point, be explained as adhesive junctions formed by asperities in
contact, and the shear force needed to cause breakaway [2]. When
asperities break loose, they release stored elastic energy, resulting
in a vibro-acoustic response. In addition, the ploughing effects of
abrasion wear [4] can also be a mechanism in the vibro-acoustic
source. The exact type of excitation is highly dependent on the
properties of the contact, such as the surface roughness, the sliding
speed, and the contact pressure [5].
Various types of noise phenomena with different spectral frequency contents are associated with braking, such as tonal and
broadband noise, either due to feedback of structural resonances
or surfaces roughness. This paper presents results from an experimental study performed on a passenger car, on a broadband disc
brake noise problem; typically referred to as wire brush, rubbing
or roughness noise, here the expression roughness noise will be
Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 87907610.
E-mail addresses: eskill@kth.se (E. Lindberg), nisseh@kth.se (N.-E. Hrlin),
pege@kth.se (P. Gransson).
1
Tel.: +46 87907940.
2
Tel.: +46 87907963.
0003-682X/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2012.07.011

used. It aims at placing the phenomenon of disc brake roughness

noise in a context among other brake noise problems and friction
noise in general.
In 1979, Yokoi and Nakai [6] made a classication of frictioninduced noise to be either rubbing or squealing. Rubbing is a
broadband phenomenon where a large frequency range is excited,
whereas squealing noise is a high pitch tonal noise where only a
narrow frequency band is excited.
The fundamental difference between tonal and broadband
brake noise phenomena is probably one reason for the vast majority of research papers concerning brake noise aimed at tonal brake
noise problems. Another reason is the global behaviour of roughness, where the structural transfer of vibro-acoustic energy into
the vehicle compartment plays a key role in the perception of
the noise event. Consequently, to solve the problem of global brake
noise phenomena, the transfer of vibro-acoustic energy from friction source to receiver has to be understood, which is often a far
from trivial problem.
In the literature, a vast amount of knowledge can be found on
the acoustic behaviour of some of the important local contact
parameters, primarily from different experimental studies. For instance [610], have shown experimentally in a series of papers that
noise levels (sound recorded close to the contact and vibrations of
one of the contact bodies) have strong correlation with both surface roughness and sliding speed. Furthermore, these results have
been conrmed by others and further studied on similar effects for
various types of materials and setups [1116].
However, such correlations have never been shown for a complete vehicle brake system for the roughness noise. Previously

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

the occurrence of, e.g. squeal [17,18], has been shown to be correlated with the surface roughness. Furthermore, no extensive study
has ever been presented, to the knowledge of the authors, on the
effects of the contact pressure to the interior noise.
In this paper a vehicle brake system roughness noise source,
sometimes referred to as wire brush, is experimentally
evaluated. The brake noise investigated is a broadband scratch
noise where sometimes more or less tonal components can be
involved. The focus is here on the broadband characteristics,
whereas possible tonal components are regarded as a different
phenomenon.
In the experimental study the focus has been on: (i) correlations
between increasing sliding speed and interior noise levels, (ii)
correlation between increased brake pressure and interior noise
levels, (iii) that roughness noise is a structural-borne noise phenomenon, (iv) system changing effects of the static part of the
brake force, and (v) a simple measurement procedure to characterise the brake roughness phenomenon.
The outline of the paper is as follows. Section 2 provides the
background and theory of roughness noise put into a context.
Section 3 describes the measurement setup. Section 4 presents
the results and its implications.
2. Roughness noise theory
The surface roughness and the sliding speed are two very
important parameters when characterising roughness noise. How
the surface roughness of the interacting bodies affects noise generation has been studied for quite some time. For instance, Yokoi and
Nakai [10] used a so called pin-on-rim setup where they pressed a
steel rod onto an unlubricated rotating disc. The surface roughness
of the disc was varied between measurements, and they concluded
that there is a correlation between increasing surface roughness
and an increase in sound pressure and vibration levels in the system. They found that the noise could be predicted with the simple
formula, Eq. (1):

DLp dB 20log10

H
Href

m
;

where H is a statistical value of the surface roughness, and m 0.8 for

the overall value of the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) and m 1.2 for the
peak SPL for the rod resonance frequencies. They showed that there
is a strong correlation between an increased sliding speed and the
sound and vibration levels observed in the system. The relative
sound pressure level change due to increasing speed could then
be approximated by the relation:

DLp dB 20log10

V
V ref

DLp dB 20log10



V
V ref

n 

m 
H
:
Href

In addition, Othman et al. [12] have stated that The magnitude SPL
is sensitive to variation in contact load; increasing the contact load
tends to increase the SPL and vice versa. In that paper a spring stylus was run over a rough surface and the roughness was estimated
from the sound generated.
3. Experimental setup
The experiments in this paper were performed under laboratory
conditions where a small passenger car was put on rollers (see
Fig. 1). The test object was selected for its size and weight, based
on the hypothesis that roughness noise is more prominent for a
lightweight vehicle. The main part of this study consisted of several
noise and vibration recordings, for different vehicle speeds and
brake forces. In each measurement the brake force and vehicle
speed was kept constant through the recording, and all noise and
vibration signals were acquired simultaneously. The sound pressure was recorded inside the passenger cabin and close to the
brake system. The acceleration was recorded in the brake system.
For the sake of conciseness the results in this paper are from measurements conducted while driving only the left front wheel of
vehicle. Due to the complexity of the measurement object, the
repeatability between measurements was not always satisfactory
as will be discussed later on. To minimise the measurement errors
due to disturbance of random character, a 90 s time recording was
used. In this paper all results are postprocessed to a 5 Hz resolution, which resulted in 456 numbers of averages (no overlap). To
minimise effects of heating and oxidation on the disc, a run-in
and cooling-down procedure was used for all measurements. The
measurements in this paper are of the comparative type, where
the absolute levels are of little importance. The main investigation
when varying speed and brake pressure was repeated several times
during several months to ensure good measurements, and even
though the repeatability was monitored the results of the main
investigation presented in this paper are all from measurements
performed during the same week, in order to minimise the inuence of environmental conditions such as temperature and
humidity.
3.1. External roller and brake pump
The vehicle tyre was driven by an external roller and the front
left wheel was positioned such that the tyre was captured in

n
;

where V is the sliding speed and n is a value that can range between
0.6 and 1.1.
The correlation between surface roughness and noise has also
been conrmed Othman and Elkholy [11], Ben Abdelounis et al.
[14]. Furthermore, Othman and Elkholy [11] also stated that the
correlation is independent of the contact sample size and material.
As a matter of fact, also the correlation between speed and noise
stated by Yokoi and Nakai [10] has been conrmed by [14,19].
Moreover, Smyth and Rice [19] showed that the sliding speed
had no effect on the frequency content of the roughness noise,
and Ben Abdelounis et al. [14] showed that the noise dependency
on the surface roughness and the sliding speed may be separated.
They found that the problem can be modelled using the same variables as Yokoi and Nakai [10], using 0.8 6 m 6 1.16 and
0.7 6 n 6 0.96, as

Fig. 1. Photograph of the full vehicle experimental rig.

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

Fig. 2. Photograph of the roller and tyre.

oil lter, (iv) a power supply, (v) a adjustable spring value, and
(vi) a oil container. In these measurements, the brake line pressure
was varied from 0 to 7.25 bar. In this interval, the background
noise was low enough for the measurement of sound pressure to
be meaningful.
Increased air-borne background noise from tyre/roller interaction was a problem when a high torque of the rollers was necessary, that is high speed and brake pressure. This noise may arise
from two nearly related forces. That is, the friction force (tangent
direction of tyre) and the adhesion force (radial direction of tyre).
With an increased friction force, the strain in the tyre grows and
hence more vibro-acoustic energy is released in the slip phase. It
has also been shown that adhesion forces in the tyre/road (roller)
separation is a noise generating mechanism [20]. However, Persson
[5] has argued that adhesion forces is not signicant for lubricated
contact. The problem with tyre noise in these measurements was
thus minimised by spraying a small quantity of water on the tyre.
Hence, by reducing the friction coefcient and the adhesion
bounds, the background noise was greatly reduced.
3.2. Instruments

between two rotating smooth steel cylinders (diameter 151.5 mm)

(see Fig. 2). The vehicle was oriented horizontally and the steering
kept in a non-turning position. The roller was driven by an electric
engine, encapsulated in the roller casing, in order to eliminate the
noise from the vehicle driveline itself. However, despite this, the
unwanted noise from the electric engine, the roller mechanics
and the roller/tyre interaction where still present. In addition, disturbances of magnetic elds in measurement equipment caused by
the high voltage frequency converter of the engine were controlled
by shielding of the high voltage cables.
Roughness brake noise problems are usually only of concern for
low vehicle speed and low brake pressure; most likely due to the
noise masking provided by other noise sources at higher speeds.
Furthermore, for low vehicle speed, high brake pressure is seldom
used for a long time, and thus would not be a problem. Consequently, in this study only relatively low speed and low brake pressure where investigated. However, higher speed and brake
pressure could be used in the rig, but using a high brake pressure
at the same time as high speed can give additional background
noise for instance problems associated with tyre slip. In this study,
the rotational speed of the rollers was varied from 44 to 242 rpm,
which corresponds to vehicle speeds of 1.36.9 km/h (roller diameter 151.5 mm).
To ensure a constant and stable brake pressure in the brake line,
an external brake pump system was built (see Fig. 3). The system
consists of: (i) a electric engine, (ii) a digital manometer, (iii) a

Fig. 3. Photograph of the external brake pump system. (i) Electric engine, (ii) digital
manometer, (iii) oil lter, (iv) power supply, (v) adjustable spring value, and (vi) oil
container.

Interior noise was recorded in the vehicle cabin with a 1/2 in.
microphone (MK 224 current type), hung from the roof in a position in between the two front seats. As the focus here was on the
development of the method and the setup, only a representation
of the interior noise level was necessary for the comparative study.
Another microphone of the same type was placed close to the
brake system and hence close to the roller. This was done in order
to examine if the brake noise in the cabin is structural-borne or airborne. In addition, the brake system was equipped with accelerometers. The calliper was tted with three accelerometers, one in each
spatial coordinate direction. The outer brake pad was also tted
with one accelerometer in the disc rotational axis direction. The
accelerometers were of Brel & Kjr type 4507. In Figs. 2 and 5
the accelerometers used can be seen. Three can be seen on the calliper and one on the brake pad.
3.3. Shaker measurement
To further investigate the vibro-acoustic behaviour of the suspension system, measurements with a shaker excitation of the
brake system were conducted. Excitation of the brake calliper in
all three coordinate directions is not straightforward to conduct
in operational condition. In order to avoid obstruction by the
wheel, an adaptor was built, as depicted in Fig. 4. Hence, the wheel

Fig. 4. Photograph of the adaptor, the stand used for the measurements without
tyre and one of the three shaker mountings (vertical direction, Z-direction).

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

layer was added to minimise rattle effects in the contact to the

stand. The stand was placed such that only the outermost part of
the adapter was supported (approximately 2 cm), in order to minimise the difference in loading situation between the two cases
(see Fig. 4). The fact that the tyre was dismounted had two major
effects: the stiffness of the air and rubber, and the mass inertia effect from the weight of the tyre and wheel.

4. Results and discussion

In this section the measurement results are presented together
with a discussion.

4.1. Sources of error

was moved out which enabled the mounting of shakers on the

brake calliper. The adaptor was made as a cylinder diameter
137 mm and length 140 mm. To minimise the mass inuence on
the system, the adaptor was made of aluminium, and holes were
drilled in the length direction to further reduce the mass. The nal
mass was 4 kg.
A shaker (LDS model No. v203) was used in three different
arrangements, exciting the calliper in the three spatial directions.
In Figs. 4 and 5 the arrangement when exciting the Z- and
Y-directions are shown. Z being the vertical direction and Y being
the inward disc rotational axis direction. Consequently, X is in
the rear direction of the vehicle. Hence, the contact plane of
disc and pad is the XZ-plane. Shaker measurements were only
conducted when rollers were shut off.
3.4. External load
The disc brake system typically consists of a disc, two pads and
a calliper. The disc function is to generate a motion proportional to
the speed of the vehicle and the pads are designed to generate friction in the interaction to the disc. The calliper function is to enable
the hydraulic system to press the pads onto the disc while holding
the pads xed in position. The brake force generated from a vehicle
can be quite large, and hence the calliper must distribute a high
force onto the suspension system. To simulate the force on the calliper by a high brake pressure, a 110 kg weight was hung from the
calliper. The weight was hung via wire to the calliper by a special
designed connector see Fig. 5. The system was then excited with
shaker excitation as described above. The results of this investigation are presented later on in Section 4.
3.5. Tyre effect
A large number of system components and their associated
properties affect the interior noise of the vehicle, regardless of
the source of vibrations. The design of a suspension system is
highly important for the nal noise inside the vehicle, where the
bushings characteristics can be a very important optimisation
parameter. There are many additional parts that can inuence
the nal brake noise, for example the tyre. To investigate the sensitivity of the system, measurements were conducted with and
without the tyre, using the previously discussed shaker setup. In
the measurements without the tyre, the adaptor was resting on a
specially constructed stand with a thin rubber layer. The rubber

The measurements in this paper were performed in a laboratory

environment using a roller to drive the left front wheel of a small
passenger car; while an external brake pump was used to control
the pressure in the brake line. The roller was driven by an electrical
engine. The electrical engine, roller and the tyre roller interaction
are all unwanted noise sources, mainly contributing to the external
background air-borne noise. There also exist effects where tyre/
roller vibrations transfer through the system, these probably being
important mainly at low frequencies. At higher frequencies these
vibrations are assumed to be isolated from the car body by the
softness of the tyre.
The effect of the tyre on the nal noise inside the vehicle is not a
trivial question, but it is nevertheless evident in the measurements
preformed here (see Fig. 6). There the root mean square magnitude
frequency response function (FRF) is shown for the three shaker
excitations of the calliper (the three coordinate directions). The
three signals are treated as uncorrelated and the FRF shown is
sound pressure over excitation force.
It can be noted in Fig. 6 that the sound pressure level inside the
vehicle for a given excitation of the calliper differs considerably if
the tyre is dismounted or not. Between 100 and 300 Hz the FRF
level without tyre is higher while between 650 and 800 Hz the
situation is reversed. The reason for this is not clear but it indicates
the importance of having natural tyre conditions when simulating
the event of roughness noise both in mathematical models and
measurements. However, it should be recalled that in these

60

Without tyre
With tyre

55

FRF magnitude [dB re. 20 Pa/N]

Fig. 5. Photograph of the external load mounting device, one of the three shaker
mountings (disc rotational axis, Y-direction), accelerometer mountings (three on
the calliper and on the brake pad, mounted in the disc rotational axis, Y).

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 6. Magnitude FRF, interior sound pressure over excitation force, root mean
square value of three excitation directions XYZ of the calliper. All directions are
treated as they were uncorrelated.

E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

15

Normalised SPL [dB]

5.0 [bar]
3.3 [bar]
1.8 [bar]

10

0
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Normalised SPL [dB]

5.0 [bar]
3.3 [bar]
1.8 [bar]

10

0
300

400

500

600

[dB]

25

20

15

10

Roller speed [km/h]

Fig. 8. Normalised total SPL between 0.1 and 1 kHz, circles estimated contribution
to the total inside noise, crosses total inside noise. Normalisation with SPL of the
estimated outside contribution for speed 1.3 km/h, brake pressure 5 bar.

ference between the outside and inside microphones and it was

used to correct the exterior level to an estimated contribution to
the interior noise. The pressure difference was measured with an
articial broadband reference source placed adjacent to the roller
to represent a source only radiating air-borne sound. It can be
noted in Fig. 8 that the contribution of the exterior noise to the total noise inside is fairly small. For the case of 4.4 km/h the exterior
contribution is 10 dB lower than the total level.
The external noise levels only slightly increase with brake pressure (see Fig. 7b), the increased interior noise due to brake pressure
(see Fig. 7a) could therefore be argued not to be due to any increased external background air-borne noise. An increase of the
roller speed will also possibly increase the exterior background
noise levels. From Fig. 8 it can be seen that the outside noise contribution to the total level is modest. Thus, the contribution of unwanted background noise is negligible for speeds under 4.4 km/h.
4.2. Brake pressure

15

200

Total interior SPL

Exterior contribution to interior SPL

1000

Frequency [Hz]

100

30

0.11kHz

measurements the tyre/roller contact is not the same as for a

tyre/road contact (see Section 3.1).
A microphone was placed close to the roller in order to estimate
the air-borne background noise level from these sources. In Fig. 7
the normalised SPL is plotted for the case of a speed of 1.3 km/h
and brake pressures of 1.8, 3.3 and 5 bar. All normalisations in this
paper is made after summation in the given frequency bands,
hence no narrow band normalisations.
The two graphs in Fig. 6 are plotted in 1/3-octave bands and are
normalised with 1.3 km/h and 0 bar brake pressure. Fig. 7a shows
the SPL inside the vehicle and Fig. 7b shows the SPL outside the
vehicle. The increase of exterior SPL is insignicant, whereas it is
clearly signicant for the interior. Based on these ndings, it could
be argued that the brake noise phenomenon referred to as roughness noise is an excitation mechanism that foremost can be recognised inside the vehicle, and hence may be considered purely
structural-borne.
Fig. 8 shows the total SPL inside the vehicle together with the
estimated contribution of the outside noise. This estimation is
made with a measured transfer function of the sound pressure dif-

Normalised SPL

400

700

800

900

1000

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 7. Normalised SPL 1/3-octave bands, crosses 1.8 bar, diamonds 3.3 bar and
triangles 5 bar, vehicle speed 1.3 km/h, normalised to SPL for same speed and no
external brake pressure.

In Fig. 9, the interior noise and pad vibration levels are plotted
for different brake pressures, at a corresponding vehicle speed of
1.3 km/h. The thick grey line corresponds to the case when no
external brake pressure was applied to the brake liquid by the
pump, the thin dashed, thin solid and thick solid black line corresponds to the cases when 1.8, 3.3 and 5 bar pressure were applied
to the brake liquid respectively. All narrow band spectra in this paper are double sided auto-spectra using a frequency resolution of
5 Hz giving root mean square amplitudes.
It is evident from Fig. 9a, that the roughness noise inside the
vehicle compartment is broadband, where a clear increase in SPL
with brake pressure can be observed in almost the whole frequency range plotted. It can also be noted that certain frequency
bands seem to be more affected by the brake pressure than others
(for instance between 500 and 700 Hz). Although, Fig. 9b, there is
always some contact between the pad and the disc, even if there
is no brake pressure, it seems that the response of the brake pad
change character when applying initial brake pressure. However,
when comparing with the non-zero brake-pressure responses it
appears as if the shape of the frequency response curve does not
differ signicantly, except that the levels are increased with brake
pressure and there are small shifts in frequency of some peaks, i.e.
four peaks above 400 Hz are shifted upwards. Possible reasons for
these frequency shifts are discussed in Section 4.2.1.

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

15

65
60

SPL [dB re. 20 Pa]

55
50
45
40
35

2.9 [km/h]
1.9 [km/h]
1.3 [km/h]

Normalised SPL0.11kHz [dB]

5.0 [bar]
3.3 [bar]
1.8 [bar]
0.0 [bar]

10

30
25
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]

Brake pressure [bar]

5.0 [bar]
3.3 [bar]
1.8 [bar]
0.0 [bar]

85

25

Calliperx
Callipery

[dB]

80

0.11kHz

75
70

Normalised Level

Level [dB re. 1 m/s2]

65
60

Calliperz

20

Pady
15

10

55
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]

Brake pressure [bar]

Fig. 9. Power spectra, different external brake pressure to the brake liquid. Thick
grey line 0 bar, thin dashed line 1.8 bar, thin solid line 3.3 bar and thick black line
5 bar. Frequency resolution 5 Hz.

Fig. 10a shows the total SPL in the frequency band between 0.1
and 1 kHz as a function of the brake pressure, for speeds of 1.3, 1.9
and 2.9 km/h. All curves are normalised to the total SPL (0.11 kHz)
of 1.3 km/h and zero brake pressure. Fig. 10b shows the total acceleration level for the frequency band of 0.11 kHz as a function of
brake pressure, for a corresponding vehicle speed of 2.9 km/h. All
the levels are normalised to the level of the pad vibrations for
the case of zero brake pressure and 2.9 km/h.
Firstly what can be noted in Fig. 10a is that the SPLs increases
with brake pressure and is similar for all the three different speeds,
secondly, it also appears that the SPL inside the vehicle almost increases linearly in the dB scale. It may be seen in Fig. 10b that
acceleration levels are highest for the calliper in the vertical direction (Z-direction). The acceleration levels of the calliper in X- and
Y-directions and for the brake pad (Y) are considerably lower but
they are all in the same order of magnitude. It may also be noted
that the brake pad vibration curve is less smooth than the others,
it oscillates slightly for varied brake pressure. The explanations
for this can be many, but one possible explanation might be that
non-linear contact effects is more visible closer to the contact zone,

Fig. 10. Total normalised levels between 0.1 and 1 kHz, function of brake pressure

it may also be related to the direction of the accelerometer (normal

to the contact zone) and the fact that vibrations generated in this
direction have a less linear relationship with increasing contact
pressure.
In Fig. 11 the normalised total (0.11 kHz) levels of the acceleration levels of the calliper (X-, Y- and Z-directions) and interior SPL
is plotted as a function of brake pressure, the corresponding vehicle speed is 2.9 km/h and all curves are normalised to the acceleration total level (0.11 kHz) of the calliper in Y-direction for a
brake pressure of 1/2 bar and speed of 2.9 km/h. Two visualisation
lines are added, the dashed line shows the corresponding 3 dB per
doubling of brake pressure slopes, i.e. linearly proportional brake
pressure (P), and the dashdotted line shows the slope that is proportional to the brake pressure as / P2/3. It should be noted in
Fig. 11 that brake pressure is plotted in a logarithmic scale.
As discussed previously, increasing the brake pressure while
keeping the sliding speed constant will result in an increase of

E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

Normalised Level

0.11kHz

[dB]

25

20

Visualisation line P
Visualisation line P
Interior SPL
Calliper

2/3

Calliper

15

Calliperz

10

0
0.5

Brake pressure (log

10

scale) [bar]

Fig. 11. Total normalised levels between 0.1 and 1 kHz, function of brake pressure.
Interior SPL, calliper acceleration levels, circles interior SPL, calliper acceleration in
Z-, Y-, X-directions, crosses, stars and triangles respectively, with the corresponding
vehicle speed of 2.9 km/h, normalised with the acceleration level of the calliper Ydirection for a brake pressure of 1/2 bar and speed of 2.9 km/h, two visualisation
line are added, the dashed line shows a 3 dB per doubling of brake pressure slope,
i.e. linearly proportional to the brake pressure (P), the dashdotted line slope is
proportional to the brake pressure as / P2/3.

the interior noise in the vehicle and the vibrations of the brake system (see Figs. 9 and 10).
Based on the assumption that the vibro-acoustic frictional
source is proportional to the stored elastic energy released in the
breakaway when the asperities break loose, it could be argued that
the source level should be linearly proportional to the contact
pressure and hence increased by 3 dB per doubling of the contact
pressure. indeed, as may be seen in Fig. 11 that the total
(0.11 kHz) acceleration level of the calliper in the vertical Zdirection follows this quite well. On the other hand, the slopes of
the interior SPL the calliper acceleration in the X- and Y-directions
appear to have slopes that are proportional to the brake pressure
as / P2/3. Keep in mind that the contact plane of disc and pad is
the XZ-plane and the sliding direction is in the Z-direction. In an
attempt to describe the vibro-acoustic source, one could argue that
the vibrations levels generated in the contact zone should be
proportional to the stiffness (or resistance to motion). The broadband character of this source may be explained as local stiffness
variations in the contact zone, where the overall level is considered
to be proportional to the DC component of the stiffness. Assuming
that the DC component of the stiffness in the normal direction
could be represented by Hertz contact theory and the tangential
resistance to motion by an elasto-plastic analogy of the Coulombs
friction law, then, for Hertz contact theory the normal elastic contact stiffness is proportional to the contact force [21] as K n / F 2=3
n ,
where Kn is the normal contact stiffness and Fn is the normal force.
From the elasto-plastic analogy of the Coulombs friction law one
could then argue that the friction force can be viewed as a plastic
stiffness as K t plastic / F n l where l is the friction coefcient. From
this the following vibration level relation could then be formed,

DLa dB 10log10


Pa
;
a
Pref

see that there seems to be a link between the normal contact stiffness (Hertz theory) and the interior SPL. It should also be noted
that the interior SPL has a slope very similar to both the calliper
accelerations in X- and Y-direction. Possible explanations for these
behaviours, see Fig. 11, might be: (i) most of the vibro-acoustic energy is realised in the asperity break loose in the sliding direction
in the frictional contact, and due to the orientation (sliding direction coincide fairly well with the vertical direction see Figs. 4 and
5) of the brake system the vertical direction is mostly excited, (ii)
the vibration levels of X- and Y-directions are not uniquely dependent on the normal contact stiffness, instead they might be dependent on the plastic frictional contact stiffness, and (iii) the interior
SPL is more related to calliper vibrations levels in the X- and Ydirections than in the Z-direction. Possibly the suspension with
shock absorber isolates and absorbs, these vibrations more efciently. Due to the the type of brake disc pad assembly and the suspension system (transfer path) and the hypothesis from Eq. (4) a
relation for the interior SPL may be written as,

where Pref is an arbitrary reference contact pressure, and a is 2/3 for

the levels in the normal direction to the contact zone and a is 1 in
the tangential (or sliding direction).
If the contact between pads and disc could be described by
Hertz theory and Coulombs friction law then it is interesting to

P2=3 cP

DLp dB 10log10

P2=3
ref cP ref

where c = Ht/Hn is a constant that gives a measure of the relative

inuence of each excitation direction to the interior noise Ht
Psound =F exci
and Hn P sound =F exci
t
n . This constant c could be experimentally determined. From the shaker measurements discussed in
Section 3.3 the constant was determined as,

v
u R 1000
u
jHt f j2 df
;
c tR 100
1000
jHn f j2 df
100

where f is the frequency in Hz and Hn and Ht is the measured

transfer functions of sound pressure over excitation force in
Y- and Z-directions respectively. In the current investigation c was
found to be 0.10. In Fig. 12 the interior SPL is plotted together with
three visualisation lines from Eq. (4) with a = 2/3, a = 1 and Eq. (5)
using the experimental c = 0.10. Moreover, the plot is for the brake
pressure range of 2.55 bar this since this was the range in which
the best agreement for the SPL could be found in Fig. 11. A clear
correlation for the interior SPL can be seen in Fig. 12 with the combined model. It should be noted that a zero c or an innite c
3

2.5

Normalised Level0.11kHz [dB]

402

Visualisation line P
Interior SPL
2/3
Visualisation line P +P 0.1
Visualisation line P

2/3

1.5

0.5

0
2.5

3.5

4.5

Brake pressure [bar]

Fig. 12. Total normalised levels between 0.1 and 1 kHz, function of brake pressure.
Interior SPL, with the corresponding vehicle speed of 2.9 km/h, normalised SPL for a
brake pressure of 2.5 bar and speed of 2.9 km/h, three visualisation line are added,
the dashed line shows a 3 dB per doubling of brake pressure slope, i.e. linearly
proportional to the brake pressure (P), the dashdotted line slope is proportional to
the brake pressure as / P2/3 and the solid line shows the combined model in Eq. (5).

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

78

5.0 [bar]
3.3 [bar]
1.8 [bar]

76

Level [dB re. 1 m/s2]

4.2.1. System loading

Brake pressure has a big inuence on the interior noise and
acceleration levels of the brake system. A clear trend can be seen
with increased brake pressure and increased acoustical response
(see Fig. 9). The noise generation dependence of the contact pressure has to the knowledge of the authors not been extensively
investigated before. Thus, the strong link between the brake pressure and the interior noise is a new result.
It can also be seen (Fig. 9) that as the brake liquid pressure increase from zero pressure the response will change drastically. A
possible reason for this phenomenon might stem from the transition from a weak coupling to a strong coupling condition.
Ben Abdelounis et al. [14] have studied what they call roughness noise for at dry contact, they categorise roughness noise as
a friction induced noise that occurs for weak contact between
the friction pairs. In Ref. [14], Akay [1] is cited, stating that the contact strength governs the type of excitation produced. For weak
contact the two contact bodies will have no modal coupling and
will behave as two free bodies excited by a random source, identied as roughness noise or surface noise. When the sliding contact
is strong, friction pairs become coupled and a more complex nonlinear instability phenomena may occur for example mode lock-in,
see for instance [22]. We the authors (in the current paper) use the
same classication as Akay to characterise weak and strong coupling. That is, weak coupling is when the vibro-acoustic problem
can be approximately spanned up by the modal basis of individual
free bodies, and strong coupling is then when this approximation is
not valid any more. However, the study in the current paper will
not limit roughness noise only to occur for weak coupling conditions. In fact, here roughness noise is understood as a noise generating mechanism that always will occur for sliding contact of rough
surfaces.
The shifting in frequency of peaks in Fig. 9b and the observation
that different frequency bands are amplied more than others in
Fig. 9a indicates that there might also be a process where the vibro-acoustic system is affected by the brake pressure. Hence, not
only the source mechanisms are affected by the contact pressure.
One possible reason for this behaviour shown in Fig. 9 could be
the coupling conditions in the contact zone, that is that increased
brake pressure leads to stronger coupling and hence the vibroacoustic system is changed as discussed above. Another, hypothesis might be that an increased brake pressure will also lead to an
increased brake force, and this force must be carried by the calliper. This may lead to pre-loading of bushings and geometrical
non-linearity when different connectors change relative position
and thus also in this case changing the vibro-acoustic system.
In Fig. 13 the acceleration levels of the outer brake pad is plotted. Fig. 13a is a zoom of the three highest peaks that could be seen
in Fig. 9b for the three different non-zero brake pressures. In
Fig. 13b the acceleration levels are plotted for three different situations, the thick black and the dashed line is for the two cases of
using a shaker excitation. The thick black line is for the case of a
110 kg external load and was used simulating the brake force at
high brake pressure. The dashed line is for the case when no
external load was used and for the same amplitude of electric signal to the shaker. In both cases the brake pressure in the brake line

80

74
72
70
68
66
64
62
60
550

600

650

700

750

Frequency [Hz]

90

Shaker, 0 [kg]
Shaker, 110 [kg]
Roller, 0 [kg]

88
86

Level [dB re. 1 m/s2]

corresponds to respectively a model proportional to only P2/3 or

P. In the current case the experimental c was found to be small
and hence the interior SPL having a slope mainly corresponding to
P2/3. But, for a different design of the brake and suspensions system
a different c would most likely have been found. Thus, from the
combined Hertz contact theory and a Coulombs stiffness analogy
model of the interior SPL, it is suggested that the orientation of
the brake and suspension system is an important design parameter
for the reduction of interior roughness noise.

84
82
80
78
76
74
72
70
550

600

650

700

750

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 13. Graph comparing the frequency shifts, effect of an external force and the
brake force, for the pad acceleration in normal direction to disc.

was kept at 5 bar. Since, an adaptor was necessary to enable shaker

excitation, the thin solid line in Fig. 13b is plotted to show that the
system still is fairly intact, the thin solid line is from similar measurements as in Fig. 13a except that the adaptor was used, when
5 bar brake pressure was used for a vehicle speed of 1.9 km/h.
What can be noted when comparing the plots in Fig. 13 is that
there is a shift upwards of the two highest (in frequency) peaks
with load (Fig. 13b) and that the shift seems to be in the same order of magnitude as can be seen in Fig. 13a. Hence, the hypothesis
that static brake force loading can change the vibro-acoustic system properties appear to be valid.
The static loading inuence on the interior noise is highly
dependent on the vibro-acoustic transfer path properties,
governing how much noise are transferred into the vehicle compartment for a given excitation. Using measured transfer functions

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

70

Measurement
Estimation without load
Estimation with load

65

SPL [dB re. 20 Pa]

60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
500

550

600

650

700

Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 14. Measured and estimated SPL for 5 bar brake pressure and 1.3 km/h using
the adaptor. Thick line, direct measurement. Thin line, estimation using unload
transfer function. Dashed line, estimation using load transfer function.

(calliper acceleration to interior sound pressure) with and without

the 110 kg load an estimate of the interior noise was made from
acceleration of the calliper. Three different transfer functions were
measured separately, exciting the calliper in the three coordinate
directions and simultaneously measuring the acceleration in the
excitation point and the interior sound. The interior noise was estimated by using acceleration (all three coordinate directions) measured on the calliper for the case of 5 bar brake pressure and
1.3 km/h vehicle speed. The total level was estimated by treating
each coordinate directions as being uncorrelated. In Fig. 14 the total level of the transfer function estimation with and without the
external load is plotted together with the directly measured interior SPL. The plot is zoomed in at the frequency region between
500 and 700 Hz since it is the region where the strongest amplication of interior SPL can be observed for increased brake pressure
(see Fig. 9a). There are limitations with this procedure of estimating the interior noise and the assumption behind the procedure.
The rst assumption implying that the brake system (calliper, disc
and pad assemble) could be treated as a stiff body suggesting that
the movement of the system could be described using six degrees
of freedom (dof) the three spatial directions and the three rotations
around the corresponding axis. These dofs could ideally be represented using six independent shaker measurements of the brake
system. Secondly, assuming that the dofs could be separated and
that any arbitrary excitation of the brake system could be represented using a weighted sum of these measured dofs. This assumption is very crude, since there will of course be correlation between
the different dofs. But, the results presented in Fig. 14 gives a good
representation of the interior noise considering all these simplications and the fact that the estimation only uses a three dof (three
shaker measurements) representation of the brake system. Furthermore, it appears that the model using the loaded transfer functions have a better representation of the directly measured results.
Hence, it could be argued that the system loading effect discussed
above, have an inuence on the transfer path problem. Moreover, it
can also be argued that there is a clear link between vibrations in
the calliper and noise inside the vehicle.
4.3. Transfer path
The transfer path problem of the vehicle suspension system is in
general a complex problem. Traditionally transfer path diagnostics
have been dealt with using correlation methods such as the

multi-correlation function [23]. The relative contribution of multiple dynamic excitations is estimated by the coherence function
[24]. Another commonly used method is experimental Transfer
Path Analysis (TPA). Experimental TPA is considered as one of the
most important tools when analysing transfer paths in complex
structures such as the suspension system of a vehicle [25]. However, the process of implementing TPA is complex and demands
both expert knowledge and a substantial amount of measurements
[25]. There are several limitations of the TPA method, where the
need of accurate Noise Transfer Functions (NTFs) is often the
underlying fundamental problem. The NTF should be measured
with point sources, to make high quality measurements of this
type of complex system is hard, and the NTF will most probably
be incorrect. The latter is partially due to the fact that it is not possible to have the right static preloads in the suspension system
during these measurements. In other words, the NTF matrix will
not give a good representation of the operational system, especially not for a case where the transfer path may change for different operational conditions, i.e. brake force loading as has been
demonstrated in the presented work. The observed system changing effect of the static brake force suggests that the problem of
brake disc roughness may not be properly solved unless these
effects are somehow included in the prediction models.
4.4. Vehicle speed
Fig. 15 shows the sound pressure, inside the vehicle (a), and
acceleration levels, of the brake pad (b) and the calliper (c), respectively when 5 bar pressure is applied to the brake liquid for the
three speeds 1.3, 1.9 and 2.9 km/h. The pad vibration plotted was
measured in the Y-direction (inward disc rotational axis direction),
and the calliper vibration was measured in the X-direction (rear
direction of the vehicle). What can be noted in Fig. 15b is that
changing the vehicle speed essentially corresponds to a broadband
increase of the overall SPL inside the plotted frequency rage. Consequently, no frequency band seems to be affected more than another, as was the case in Fig. 9a for different brake pressures. It is
clear from Fig. 15b that the peaks in the frequency response do
not shift with increasing speed. It can also be noted that there is
no linear broadband effect of increasing the speed as could be seen
in Fig. 9a. But, from Fig. 15c almost the same linear broadband result can be seen for increased vehicle speed. Hence, the link between vibrations in the brake system and interior SPL seems to
be more complex and possibly non-linear for the pad vibrations
than observed for vibrations of the calliper. Moreover, it can also
be noted that over 500 Hz there is a clear resemblance between
the vibrations of the calliper and the interior SPL.
Roughness noise is probably present in all vehicles with most
kinds of solid material friction brakes. However, it is mostly
masked by other noises sources. To the knowledge of the authors
most of the cases where wire brush (roughness) noise is reported
as a problem are for low vehicle speed when background levels
are lower, so the effects of tyre road and other sources are of course
important in how the noise event is perceived. In this investigation
the masking effects were minimised to be able to better exhibit the
generation of the excitation itself.
One of the goals of the present work, was to see how the interior
roughness brake noise in the vehicle correlates to the sliding speed.
Furthermore, how results from experimental studies of simplied
setups such as the pin-on-rim setup by Yokoi and Nakai [10], can
be related to the problem of an entire brake system including the
vibro-acoustic transfer path problem. In the collected literature it
can be found that statistical values describing the surface roughness are important parameters that govern the frictional noise
source mechanism, but, measurement results in literature have
also suggested that surface roughness parameters and sliding

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

18

70

2.9 [km/h]
1.9 [km/h]
1.3 [km/h]

SPL [dB re. 20 Pa]

60
55
50
45
40
35

14
12
10
8
6
4
2

30
25
100

Ben Abdelounis et al.

Yokoi and Nakai
1.3 [bar]
5.0 [bar]

16

Normalised SPL0.11kHz [dB]

65

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]

2.9 [km/h]
1.9 [km/h]
1.3 [km/h]

88

Level [dB re. 1 m/s ]

86
84
82
80
78
76
74
72
70
200

300

400

500

Roller speed [km/h]

90

68
100

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]

2.9 [km/h]
1.9 [km/h]
1.3 [km/h]

90

Fig. 16. Total normalised SPL between 0.1 and 1 kHz as a function of roller speed.
Crosses, interior noise for a brake pressure of 1.3 bar. Circles, interior noise for a
brake pressure of 5 bar. Dashed line, limits from Eq. (3). Dotted line, limits from Eq.
(2). Normalisation total SPL of individual signal and 1.3 km/h.

studied without having parameters describing the surface roughness. In addition, the size of the contact pairs should not affect
the behaviour. It can be seen in Fig. 15 that there is indeed a broadband increase of both interior noise levels and brake system vibrations. As stated by [19] the noise dependency on sliding speed
should not effect the frequency content, but only increasing the
overall level of the noise, which can clearly be seen to be the case
for the current problem see Fig. 15. It can also be argued that sliding speed dependency of the noise problem is simpler to model
than the brake pressure effect, as there seems to be little system
altering effect due to change of the speed. In Fig. 16 the interior total (0.11 kHz) normalised SPL is plotted as a function of vehicle
speed for brake pressure of 1.3 and 5 bar, the normalisation chosen
as the total SPL from the lowest speed using the same brake individual brake pressure. The limits from the two equations Eqs. (2)
and (3) are plotted in the graph. In fact, it can be seen that even
though these formulas were derived from simplied measurements and the results from this study is for a much more complex
setup, the results correlate quite well.

Level [dB re. 1 m/s ]

5. Conclusions and ndings

85

In this paper the main results from measurements performed

on a full vehicle laboratory test rig are presented. The test rig
was designed by the authors for the purpose of full body vehicle
measurements of brake noise. Evidently it is possible to reproduce
the effects of friction-induced noise in a vehicle using this test rig.

80

75

5.1. Findings
70

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 15. Levels for different speeds. thick black line 1.3 km/h, dashed line 1.9 km/h
and thick grey line 2.9 km/h. Brake pressure all cases 5 bar.

speed parameters can be independently studied [14]. In other

words, sliding speed as a noise generating parameter can be

The vibro-acoustic excitation of the roughness noise may be divided into two components. That is, (i) excitation in the sliding
direction, in these measurements a linear proportionality to the
brake-pressure was found, and (ii) the vibro-acoustic excitation
in normal direction of the contact plane, in these measurements
a non-linear proportionality to the brake-pressure was found (proportional to the brake pressure to the power of 2/3). The proportionally in both cases can be argued to be due to the stiffness of
the problem, where the resisting force (stiffness) in the sliding
direction is directly proportional to the brake pressure which
consistent with Coulombs friction law. The contact stiffness in
the normal direction is proportional to the contact pressure to

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E. Lindberg et al. / Applied Acoustics 74 (2013) 396406

the power of 2/3 which is in accordance to the Hertz contact

theory.
Combined models of the Hertz contact theory and the Coulombs friction law, may be used to predict the relative total interior SPL change do to a changed in brake pressure.
5.2. Conclusions
It is concluded that the vehicle phenomenon of disc brake
roughness noise (wire brush) is a purely structural-borne noise
problem. Moreover, the noise phenomenon is dependent on the
brake pressure and the vehicle speed. Both interior SPL and brake
system vibrations increase with increasing brake pressure and sliding speed.
Furthermore, increased brake pressure can lead to system-altering effects, and this loading of the system has to be included to
accurately model the problem.
Finally, the broadband noise caused by frictional contact of two
rough surfaces can occur for both weak and strong (when the two
bodies no longer dynamically can be seen as two free bodies)
coupling conditions.
Acknowledgements
The work has been performed within the research Project
Environmental Friendly Brakes, sponsored by Vinnova/Green
Car program in which the participating partners are Saab Automobile AB and KTH. The funding is gratefully acknowledged.
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