Tribological Properties of Friction Materials Developed from Non- Asbestos Materials using Response Surface Methodology

Over many years, asbestos has been used as reinforcement material in the production of brake pads production but it has lost favour due to its carcinogenic nature, as a result, there is need to investigate other possible substitute which can offer similar tribological properties as the carcinogenic material (asbestos). Several works has been carried out using different reinforcement material with the aim of finding a possible replacement for asbestos. In this work, Rule of mixture (ROM) was ustlised for sample formulation and the tribological properties of natural based material (coconut shell and seashell) were investigated using experimental design (response surface methodology) and multi-response optimisation technique (Grey relational analysis). The multi-response performance of the formulated brake pads samples was compared with a commercial brake pad sample. The research findings revealed that sample can be produced using 52% reinforcement, 35% binder, 8% abrasive and 5% friction modifier while the Grey relational analysis (GRA) showed that optimum multi-response performance of the developed coconut shell based sample can be achieved using MP, MT and CT and HTT of 12MPa, 100 oC, 6mins and 2hrs respectively while that of the developed seashell based brake pad can be achieved using MP, MT and CT and HTT of 10MPa, 160 oC, 12mins and 2hrs respectively. Also, the Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results show a percentage error of less than 5% indicating minima noise effect. In addition, the optimized coconut shell-based brake pads falls within the category of class H (µ >0.55) type of brake pads while seashell based sample falls within the class G (µ: 0.45-0.55) type of brake pads. It therefore concluded that the use of coconut shell can serve as a better substitute for asbestos-based brake pads.