Authors

Tasala Gradin Katja, Hedlund Åström Anna

KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Transport is increasing worldwide, both on road, air, and sea. This escalation leads to more emissions to air, soil, and water. Road transport contributes to both exhaust and non-exhaust emissions. Non-exhaust emission is for example particulates ranging from dust size to nano sized material parts. Particulate emission is a known issue with considerable impacts on plant, animal, and human health [1]. The brake system is one of the most significant contributors to particle emissions [2]. It is of great interest to decrease the amount of particulate generated through wear through braking. In the EU Horizon 2020 LOWBRASYS project [3], the aim was to diminish the particle emissions from brakes. One of the results is a novel disc brake with rotor and pad-materials that indicate a drastic decrease in particulate formation during use. The decrease is accomplished by changing the materials of the contact pair regarding composition and coatings [4]. This study is a comparative LCA of two different disc brake solutions. Through the study, it is possible to quantify different environmental impacts. The novel disc brake is compared to a reference disc brake. One of the aims of this study is to identify other environmental impacts than particle emissions throughout the life cycle. Impacts can be associated with different impact categories, in this case study, ionizing radiation, mineral resource scarcity, water consumption, and fine particulate matter formation are analysed further. Differences in impact between the two disc brake options are minuscule. Primarily, the analysed impacts are connected to the use phase. The novel disc brake demands slightly more production resources due to the high tech coating of the disc compared to the non-coated reference disc. The difference between the two brakes might seem trivial, but without the total impact of a disc brake, it is impossible to set it in a meaningful context and make decisions without risk of sub-optimising, from the results of this study.