Tribological surfaces of organic brake pads

Despite the enormous amount of testing and development of automotive brakes and brake pad materials, rather little is known about their tribological contact situation on a microscopic level. The sliding of an organic brake pad against a grey cast iron rotor is very different from most tribological systems. When worn against the rotor, the complex structure and very inhomogeneous composition of the pads results in a particular surface structure, with large contact plateaus rising a few micrometers above the rest of the surface [Wear 232 (1999) 163; Wear 2000 (submitted for publication); Proceedings of the Nordtrib 2000, vol. 2 (2000), 358]. The present investigation involves a more comprehensive study of the formation, mechanical properties and composition of the tribological surfaces of such pads, using high resolution scanning electron microscopy, nanoindentation, energy dispersive X-ray analysis and three-dimensional profilometry using white light optical interferometry. The observations are discussed and correlated to observed friction phenomena.