ABSTRACT

 The development and evaluation of a new composite material for automobile brake pad application has been carried out in this study. The brake pad sample was produced with the geometric specification of 504 saloon model. The constituent materials include snail shell with mucuna sloanei shell as filler, iron oxide as abrasive, epoxy resin as matrix, glass fiber as reinforcement and graphite as the friction modifier. The weight composition in grams of the first three constituent materials were kept constant while those of the reinforcement and friction modifier materials were varied at various values of(30 and 25), (20 and 30), (15 and 15) and (5 and 20) grams to develop four different formulations represented as A, B, C and D. These formulated composite mixtures were used to produce the brake pad samples using standard factory procedures. The test samples were thereafter tested for both coefficients of dynamic and static friction, wear rate and hardness. The results obtained showed that formulations A, B, C, and D have values of (0.46 and 0.43), (0.47 and 0.44), (0.42 and 0.37) and (0.43 and 0.40) for static and dynamic coefficients of friction respectively. The wear rate values of 3.5, 3.6, 4.7 and 4.9mg/rn were obtained for formulations A, B, C and D respectively while the hardness values of 46, 44, 38 and 30 HRB were noted in the similar order. The optimum value for coefficient of friction was obtained in formulation B while the best wear behavior and hardness value were given by formulation A. It was found that increase in the percentage weight composition of the friction modifier improved the coefficient of friction while increase in the percentage weight composition of the reinforcement material decreased or enhanced the wear rate. The performance evaluation of the formulated brake pad material shows that the properties compare well with the foreign asbestos-based products. Hence, it was concluded that snail shell and mucuna sloanei shell should be used based at the specified composition as base materials for brake pad application.