A Factorial Design to Numerically Study the Effects of Brake Pad Properties on Friction and Wear Emissions

Airborne particulate emissions originating from the wear of pads and rotors of disc brakes contribute up to 50% of the total road emissions in Europe. The wear process that takes place on a mesoscopic length scale in the contact interfaces between the pads and rotors can be explained by the creation and destruction of contact plateaus. Due to this complex contact situation, it is hard to predict how changes in the wear and material parameters of the pad friction material will affect the friction and wear emissions. This paper reports on an investigation of the effect of different parameters of the pad friction material on the coefficient of friction and wear emissions. A full factorial design is developed using a simplified version of a previously developed cellular automaton approach to investigate the effect of four factors on the coefficient of friction and wear emission. The simulated result indicates that a stable third body, a high specific wear, and a relatively high amount of metal fibres yield a high and stable mean coefficient of friction, while a stable third body, a low specific wear, a stable resin, and a relatively high amount of metal fibres give low wear emissions.