Investigating the Mechanical Properties of Automotive Brake Disc and Pad Developed from Locally Sourced Materials

Brake discs and pads are among the most crucial performance and safety components within an automotive braking mechanism. Recent advances in the development of brake discs and pads have witnessed the use of organic and cost-effective materials, which are less harmful to the human health and the environment. In view of this, this study aims to investigate the some mechanical properties of the automotive brake pads and discs developed from locally sourced materials. First, the design calculations were carried out to establish the tangential force between pad and rotor (inner and outer face), the braking torque and distance as well as the amount of heat generated through braking. Secondly, the Abaqus explicit mode was employed for the investigation of the wear, stress, strain analysis. In the analysis of successive interactions of the thermal and mechanical forces on the brake disc and pads, the static general and thermal steps were created and successively invoked. The thermal analysis was first carried and subsequently invoked as the initial conditions for the analysis of mechanical forces in the static general analysis step in order to determine the wear, stress and strain distributions when the brake disc and pad works under the required conditions. The results obtained indicated that with Kevlar 29 stood out as the most suitable material in terms of heat resistance. However, for the brake disc, the materials exhibited different behaviours under the same required service conditions when combined with Kevlar 29. Thus, in order to determine the most suitable material, there may be a need to consider other factors such as cost, manufacturability, strength etc. In addition, there may be a need to carry out optimisation of the process parameters such as the braking temperature and pressure. The findings of this study may be useful for the materials developers in the automotive industry in investigating the potential performance or behavior of automotive braking components under the required service conditions.