Wear of truck brake lining materials using three different test methods

Frictional stability and wear resistance are key performance requirements for heavy truck brake linings. Lining-counterface friction affects the rate of vehicle deceleration, but wear also affects stopping characteristics because uneven or high wear can alter the contact geometry of the lining, change the pattern of frictional heat generation, and degrade the response of the braking system. Inertia dynamometer wear tests are commonly conducted in the linings industry, but are expensive and time consuming. It is therefore of interest to seek more convenient, lower-cost test methods that still enable wear rates of various linings to be effectively differentiated. The purposes of the current study were to determine whether the wear of brake lining materials can be measured in shorter-term laboratory tests, and if so, to determine to what extent the relative ranking of several lining materials' wear resistance depends on the method of testing. To investigate these issues, three commercial truck brake lining materials were worn against gray cast iron using three different laboratory-scale wear testing machines. Assessments of wear by gravimetric methods and dimensional changes using the same test apparatus were compared. The three linings ranked in similar order in all three kinds of wear tests, but the relative differences between the wear of one lining and another differed among the test methods. Results are discussed in terms of what test conditions are required to simulate brake lining wear in trucks, and how in situ lining material aging and transfer film formation can affect the wear of brake lining materials. Differences in the entrapment of third-bodies entering the contact had an important influence on the wear results and an additional set of block-on-ring experiments was conducted to demonstrate that effect. Removing wear debris with a wiper pad altered the relative wear ranking of the three materials. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.