The thermal characteristics of a disk such as temperature distribution, thermal behaviors and thermal stress during a braking operation has been analyzed for a high-speed brake using the finite element method. The maximum stress for a pad loaded against a disk was occurred at the trailing and leading edges of the disk pad at the underlayer-backplate interface. The FEM results indicate that the thermal characteristics of the spot type pad shows good performance compared with those of the flat type pad. Thus, the spot type pad in brake system may be recommended for the high-speed train system.