The article presents development and the current state of solutions methods of a one-dimensional thermal problem of friction during braking. Two approaches to the solution of this sort of problems are considered. The modeling of frictional heating within the limits of the first approach consists in mental separation of rubbing bodies and heating each of them with a thermal flux with known intensity (proportional to the specific power of friction). In the second approach the intensities of the heat fluxes are unknown a priori, and they are found from the solution of the thermal contact problem. The article includes the information on the reviews dealing with the problems of thermoelastic instability, and the methods of the solution of the corresponding plane or spatial problems, too. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.