Frictional behavior of resin-based brake composites: Effect of carbon fibre reinforcement

Abstract

To investigate the effect of short carbon fibre on the tribological behavior of phenolic resin-based friction materials, a reference friction composite holding various ingredients without short carbon fibre, and three friction composites holding 1, 2 and 4 vol% carbon fibre were formulated. The dynamic-mechanical and thermogravimetric analyses showed the increase of storage modulus and reduction of thermal stability, respectively, with incorporation of carbon fibre into the brake composites. The tribological characterizations revealed that the coefficient of friction (COF) and specific wear rate of the friction composites dropped with addition of carbon fibre into the composites. Carbon fibre also aggravated the fade behavior, reduction of COF with temperature increase. The SEM imaging of the composites revealed the formation of primary and secondary plateaus in the friction composites after addition of carbon fibre. The results obtained from dynamic-mechanical analysis, thermogravimetric analysis and SEM imaging were employed to investigate the worn surface of the samples and justify the aforementioned tribological behavior.