The friction brake is an extremely important part of vehicle assembly, and is responsible mainly for safety. From one side it is relatively cheap to manufacture and simple as a mechanical design, on the flip side final customers have a very high expectation related to quiet operation, good pedal feeling, environmental protection and fuel saving. A typical brake pad is made of quite a few different elements, but one of the most important is its back-plate. It plays the crucial role of the skeleton on which piston forces are focused. Usually for the production of the metal supports of the brake pads for passenger cars and light vans very low-grade steel is used, because it is cheap to produce and its mechanical properties are sufficient. However it does not mean that quality of this element can be completely omitted. n this paper we show the influence of basic properties of steel back-plate such as: flatness, deviation from tolerances, type of the steel used in the production and the type of blanking on NVH, pedal feeling and residual torque. The tests will be carried out under controlled conditions on a full scale inertia dynamometer.

Maciej Mlodzikowski, Lumag sp. z o.o.