Brake force calculations

[AutoEngineers]

TL;DR Summary

Working with Vectors

I'll try and keep this as easy as I can. The Right Triangle above represents the forces acting through the trailing shoe of a automotive drum brake.
Point A is the central position of the brake expander. When the foot brake is depressed, a force is created that pushes the brake expander piston towards the point B. The force applied from A to B is 102.32 N. When the force applied presses the brake shoe against the drum surface, the frictional force created is 32 N.

This is were I'm having doubts what to do next! The force applied is 102.32 N, the frictional force created from the applied force is 32 N.

I now want to calculate the component force acting within the brake shoe! Initially I was thinking; 102.32 x cos 37.59 = 81.1 N, but do I need to recognise the 32 N in my calculations?

If I also calculate the force acting along CA, then 102.32 x cos 52.41 = 62.4 N.

If I were to use pythagorus then those forces would work out 102.32 N correctly.

Conclusions...

I'm not sure if the frictional force acting should be taken into consideration?

I',m not 100% confident that the component forces calculated are correct?

Please advise if possible.

 

[jack action]

Drum brakes are complicated to evaluate and design details are important. The following videos explain how to do it for simple drum brakes:

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For other drum brake designs, refer to Brake Design and Safety by Rudolf Limpert, p.76-93.