Structural and Thermal Analysis of Magnesium Based Brake Friction Material

Abstract

Abstract: Conventional brake pad friction materials are made of organic, metallic and ceramic materials but they suffer from various shortcomings like dampening effects, formation of undesirable phases, sensitivity to high temperature and brittleness. However, in the recent years due to better tribological properties of magnesium and its composites they have gained considerable importance to be used as brake pad friction material. In present article the structural and thermal analysis of six magnesium composites (viz., AZ91 + 0.5 wt.% GNP, AZ91 + 30 wt.% TiC, Mg + 1 Al + 0.6 wt.% CNT, AZ91D + 1.5 wt.% B4C, Mg + 10 % TiC + 5 wt.% MoS2, Mg+ 5 wt.% Graphite) in ANSYS software has been carried out. During the structural and thermal simulation it was observed that AZ91+0.5wt%GNP and Mg+1Al+0.60CNT gave the best results for total deformation, equivalent stress and strain and were found to be the most suitable composites for making brake pad friction material. This behaviour of the GNP and CNT composites can be attributed to their respective honey-comb and cylindrical structure lattice and high thermal properties. Keywords: Brake pad friction material, Structural analysis, Thermal analysis, Composites, GNP, CNT