Ventilated brake discs are used in high speed vehicles. The brake disc is an important component in the braking system which is expected to withstand and dissipate the heat generated during the braking event. In the present work, an attempt is made to study the effect of vane-shape on the flow-field and heat transfer characteristics for different configurations of vanes and at different speeds numerically. Three types of rotor configurations circular pillared, modified taper radial and diamond pillar vanes were considered for the numerical analysis. A rotor segment of 20° was considered for the numerical analysis due to its rotational symmetry. The pre processing is carried out with the help of ICEM-CFD and analysis is carried out using ANSYS CFX 12.1. The three dimensional flow through the brake rotor vanes has been simulated by solving the appropriate governing equations viz. conservation of mass, momentum and energy using the commercial CFD tool, ANSYS CFX 12. The predicted results have been validated with the results available in the literature. Circular pillar rotor vanes are found to have more uniform pressure and velocity distribution which results in more uniform temperature drop around the vanes. The effect of number and diameter of vanes in the circular pillared rotor is studied and the geometry is optimized for better mass flow and heat dissipation characteristics.