The aim of the investigations was to reduce wear of brake pad as well as of brake disc. The brake pad to be investigated was a commercial sintered brake pad produced at Scandinavian Brake Systems A/S (SBS) and composed of more than 10 different materials. Even excluding process parameters the number of experimental variables was quite large. It was therefore decided to use design of experiments (DOE) as a systematic approach to reduce wear.

The team discussed which parameters and materials that could be of most importance to wear and a DOE was selected. It was decided to lock process parameters and focus on materials among these the amount of hard metal which turned out to be a significant factor for both disc and pad wear.

Based on the results of the first DOE, a second DOE was initiated in order to expand the model of the first DOE. The second DOE was a fractional design as before and investigated 4 of the factors from the first DOE and including a center point. The optimal setting for hard metal from the first DOE was selected as center point to check if the setting actually was the best.

Based on the results of the second DOE, a recipe was made and pads manufactured. The reduced wear of the improved pad is reported and compared with the original pads.

Andersen, Torben Paarup*, Fischer, Gert, Tønnesen, Jesper, Larsen, Jørgen - Scandinavian Brake Systems A/S