Analysis of air flow and heat dissipation from a high performance passenger car front brake rotor

The increasing demand from the consumer for higher levels of refinement from their passenger vehicles has put considerable pressure on the automotive industry to produce ever quieter cars. In order to prevent the occurrence of many forms of brake noise, especially judder and drone, excessive heating of the brake disc must be avoided, whilst minimising temperature variations across the rotor. In order for this to be achieved the brake rotor must be designed such that it ensures sufficient uniform heat dissipation and thermal capacity. In high demand braking applications vented discs consisting of two rubbing surfaces separated by straight radial vanes are normally employed as they utilise a greater surface area to dissipate heat. Within this paper the convective heat dissipation from a high performance passenger car front brake disc has been investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The results obtained have been validated by those obtained in preliminary vehicle testing at Millbrook test facility. The computational model shows adequate correlation to the test results; overpredicting the average heat transfer coefficient by 18%. The CFD analysis enabled a detailed insight into the air flow and heat transfer distributions, that was not possible during the vehicle test regim

The electoral effectiveness of constituency campaigning in the 2010 British General Election: The ‘triumph’ of Labour?

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Electoral Studies. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This article establishes a model of likely campaign effectiveness, before examining the intensity of constituency campaigning at the 2010 general election in Britain and its subsequent impact on electoral outcomes, using both aggregate and individual level data. It shows that constituency campaigning yielded benefits in varying degrees for all three main parties and that Labour’s constituency campaign efforts were effective despite the electoral context, and ultimately affected the overall outcome of the election. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the circumstances under which campaigns are likely to be more or less effective, and provide further evidence that a carefully managed campaign stands the most chance of delivering tangible electoral payoffs

Electoral Shocks

This book offers a novel perspective on British elections, focusing on the importance of increasing electoral volatility in British elections, and the role of electoral shocks in the context of increasing volatility. It demonstrates how shocks have contributed to the level of electoral volatility, and also which parties have benefited from the ensuing volatility. It follows in the tradition of British Election Study books, providing a comprehensive account of specific election outcomes—the General Elections of 2015 and 2017—and a more general approach to understanding electoral change.We examine five electoral shocks that affected the elections of 2015 and 2017: the rise in EU immigration after 2004, particularly from Eastern Europe; the Global Financial Crisis prior to 2010; the coalition government of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015; the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014; and the European Union Referendum in 2016.Our focus on electoral shocks offers an overarching explanation for the volatility in British elections, alongside the long-term trends that have led us to this point. It offers a way to understand the rise and fall of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Labour’s disappointing 2015 performance and its later unexpected gains, the collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats, the dramatic gains of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015, and the continuing period of tumultuous politics that has followed the EU Referendum and the General Election of 2017. It provides a new way of understanding electoral choice in Britain, and beyond, and a better understanding of the outcomes of recent elections

District-level explanations for supporter involvement in political parties: The importance of electoral factors

© The Author(s) 2017. Traditional analyses of grass roots involvement in political parties have focussed almost exclusively on formal members. However, recent analyses across a range of democracies have shown that non-members (supporters) are playing important roles within political parties, including election campaigning, candidate and leader selection, online policy deliberations and even policy formation. The growing literature on this topic suggests that the involvement of supporters may be a function of party structure and availability of online recruitment. Using new data collected at the 2015 British general election, this article extends the examination of supporter involvement but challenges these assumptions. It shows that supporter activity is better explained by responses to electoral factors and that the focus on online recruitment seriously underplays the enduring importance of human contact.UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Economic and Social Research Council (grant no ES/M007251/1

Comparison of air flow and heat dissipation from the front brakes fitted to a high performance GT Car

Within this paper the convective heat dissipation from the front brake discs fitted to the left and right hand side of a high performance passenger car has been compared. The tools used in this investigation include computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and vehicle testing. The results show that although identical discs are fitted to both sides of the vehicle the disc fitted to the left hand side shows better thermo-aerodynamic properties than that fitted to the right due to the different direction of rotation. The computational model shows strong agreement with the test results; over predicting the average heat transfer coefficient by 4% for the left hand disc and 7.6% for the right disc. The CFD analysis enabled a detailed insight into the air flow and heat transfer distributions that was not possible during the vehicle test regime

A computational fluid dynamic analysis on the effect of front row pin geometry on the aerothermodynamic properties of a pin-vented brake disc

Increasing demand from the consumer for higher levels of refinement from their passenger vehicles has put considerable pressure on the automotive industry to produce ever quieter cars. In order to prevent the occurrence of many forms of brake noise, especially judder and drone, excessive heating of the brake disc must be avoided, while minimizing temperature variations across the rotor. In order for this to be achieved the brake rotor must be designed such that it ensures sufficient uniform heat dissipation and thermal capacity. In high-demand braking applications, vented discs consisting of two rubbing surfaces separated by straight radial vanes are normally employed, as they utilize a greater surface area to dissipate heat. Within this paper the effects of changing the geometry of the first row of pins on aerothermo-dynamic properties of a pin-vented brake rotor are investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The validated CFD model shows that decreasing the thickness of the first row of pins by 10 per cent improves the mass flowrate through the rotor by 14 per cent and the heat transfer rate by 6 per cent. The results obtained can be used for the design of brake discs which are efficient with respect to heat dissipatio