Frictional performance evaluation of newly designed brake pad materials

This work is aimed to study the tribological properties difference of potentially new designed non-commercial brake pad materials with and without asbestos under various speed and nominal contact pressure. The two fabricated non-commercial asbestos brake pad (ABP) and non-asbestos brake pad (NABP) materials were tested and compared with a selected commercial brake pad (CMBP) material using a pin-on-disc tribo-test-rig under dry contact condition. Results showed that friction coefficients for all materials were insensitive to increasing speed and pressure. NABP maintained stable frictional performance as ABP material when contact temperature elevated. Moreover, NABP proved to have greater wear resistance compared to ABP and CMBP materials. Furthermore, the SEM micrographs of brake pad surfaces showed craters which is due to disintegration of plateaus. Finally, the test results indicated that the NABP has the potential braking characteristic for a brake pad material. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.