Study on Tribological Investigations of Alternative Automotive Brake Pad Materials

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to simulate the process of wear mechanism of brake pad in braking operation to evaluate the weight loss due to wear and the specific wear coefficient for different bake pad materials. It is a key component of transportation including industrial equipment; friction brake plays a critical role in their routine work as well as safety activity. The braking system's role in an automotive is to slow or stop the automobile entirely by converting its kinetic energy to heat energy by friction. The pad and rotor interaction causes friction heat, so the brake pad must absorb heat rapidly to survive high temperatures, but not wear. This work analyzes and discusses various environment friendly and healthy option materials to asbestos. Brake pad friction substance is made up of different materials such as binders, filler content, additives, and reinforcements to satisfy the specifications and adjust their percentage effects on the tribological properties. Over the past few days, the brake pads have been manufactured of asbestos material with enough electrical, tribological, as well as physical properties, but that causes cancer and many other health issues, and therefore, its use is redundant. Three samples with specific mixtures are used with varying ratio of ingredients as well as observing their impact on the tribological characteristics like brake pad friction and wear. Weight loss observed for the asbestos material for the same loading condition is more as compared to the non-asbestos material.