Friction and Wear Performance of Brake Pad and Optimization of Manufacturing Parameters using Grey Relational Analysis

Brake pads play very important role in the safety of Automobiles as they control the speed of the vehicle. Therefore manufacturing aspects of the brake pads and improvement in their performance are studied in this paper. Experiments are designed based on Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array. Manufacturing pressure, temperature and time are taken into consideration as process variables. Nine sets of experiments were conducted. Each experiment consisted of distinct combination process variables. Thus Brake pads with Kevlar and Lapinus fibers as a reinforcement and Epoxy resin as a binder, Barium sulfate as a filler and Aluminium oxide as a friction modifier were manufactured using the hot compression method during each experiment. Friction and Wear performance was accessed by the measurement of the Coefficient of friction and weight loss during the trial on the pin on disc apparatus. Specific wear rate was obtained by measuring the differences in density and weight values before and after the trial run.The required values of process parameters i.e. Pressure (500 Psi), Time (8 mins.) and Temperature (180 oC) which give optimum values of coefficient of friction and Wears were determined using Grey relational analysis.