Optimization of Process Parameters for Friction Materials Using Multi-Criteria Decision Making: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Friction materials, mainly made of reinforced composites, should possess excellent physical and tribological properties, such as a higher coefficient of friction, minimum wear, adequate surface hardness, and higher porosity for various automotive brake applications. Attainment of those properties greatly depends on the settings of different input parameters, such as molding pressure, temperature and time, temperature and time of heat treatment/sintering, etc., during the processing of friction materials. In this article, four multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools, i.e., technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS), VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR), and multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) are applied to identify the optimal parametric combinations for two different friction materials. A comparative analysis of the derived results suggests the same optimal parametric mixes for all the MCDM techniques for both case studies. Thus, for the considered case studies, the optimal parametric combinations as molding time = 8 min, molding temperature = 175 °C, molding pressure = 27 MPa, sintering time = 10 h and sintering temperature = 225 °C, and molding pressure = 27.90 MPa, molding temperature = 170 °C, curing time = 8 min, and heat treatment time = 1 h, respectively, would help in attaining the most desired properties of friction materials. Improvements in the predicted response values prove the efficacy of the adopted MCDM techniques in determining the optimal combinations of various process parameters for friction materials.