Originally posted by MCoach:
5mm thick? Steel? I've seen 5mm thick aluminum rotors work on a FSAE car, just saying.
That being said, our rotors this year were 5mm thick steel. As mentioned in previous threads, 800 F was common for us.
Your simulation can consist of something as simple as this:
Assume rotors absorb all energy with none sent to other components (pads, fluid, etc)
Assume cooling is nill per stop.
Assume your own calculated (read guessed) cooling coefficient during non-braking events.
1/2m*v^2 = Cp * (delta)T * rho * V
variables as listed in order of appearance:
m - mass of vehicle
v - velocity of vehicle
Cp - brake disc specific heat
(delta)T - temperature gain in brake disc
rho - density of disc material
V - volume of brake disk
There's the heating part of it, which can at least get you an idea of what is going on with your discs.
The cooling part is up to you.
This is about as simple as it gets.