Abstract
The nowadays trends reflected in growing demands on the eco-friendly character of materials utilized for manufacturing of industrial products has not avoided the automotive industry. Automotive brake linings represent part which is constantly abraded during their service and wear debris released during the braking directly enter environment. This fact evoked the interest about the composition of the friction composites since the strong negative health effect was observed for asbestos, which instead of many other applications served as an excellent filler for friction composites for brake linings. Since the utilization of the asbestos has been banned the systematic search for suitable candidate of filler for brake linings has resulted in research dealing with utilization of organic fibers as the filamentous fillers. Despite the fact, that the negative effect of the wear debris releasing during friction of NAO composites containing aramide fibers has not been verified yet, the hazardous compounds originating during their manufacture evoked the efforts for utilization of natural fibers.
Five sets of NAO friction composites with growing content of jute fibers and proportionally decreased content of other 8 components (wollastonite, basalt fibers, zircon, baryte, vermiculite, graphite, phenoloic resin and cardanol based benzoxazine) were prepared in laboratory scale and their functional properties were tested using friction tester in the temperature range of 100 – 350 °C. The results showed that the values of the friction coefficient were slightly lower in comparison to reference composite (without jute fibers). The dependency of friction coefficient on the temperature revealed that the fade phenomenon at the samples containing jute fibers occurs at temperature 250°C, what is the same temperature as was observed for the reference sample. The specific wear rate determined for samples with jute fibers was lower at all of the tested temperatures in comparison to the reference sample. The obtained results show the jute fibers as a suitable filamentous component for friction composite designed for automotive brake linings.
KEYWORDS – NAO friction composites, jute fibers, friction properties, wear, friction surface.