Mostafa M. Makrahy¹, Nouby M. Ghazaly^1,, K. A. Abd El-Gwwad¹, K. R. Mahmoud¹, Ali M. Abd-El-Tawwab¹

In this paper, a novel wedge disc brake is evaluated experimentally using brake dynamometer and Taguchi approach. The main purpose of Taguchi method is to assess the significant of different operation parameters that effect of wedge brake performance. This approach facilitated the study factors and their settings with a small number of experimental runs leading to considerable economy in time and cost for the process optimization. Four control factors are defined as applied pressure, vehicle speed, wedge angle inclination and water spraying, each at four levels are selected and an orthogonal array layout of L16 (4⁴) are performed. From the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of the test results, the significant parameters to improve wedge disc brake behavior are suggested.The wedge brake performance based on the experimental results is compared with the predicted results using Taguchiapproach and they are found to be in good agreement.

Taguchi approach, wedge disc brake, applied pressure, sliding speed, water spraying