Dry Sliding Wear Studies of Copper-Based Powder Metallurgy Brake Materials

The paper focuses on a novel friction material on Cu-based powder metal material. Several elements, such as Al, SiO2, Fe, graphite, Sn, Mn, and MoS2 were added to the Cu and were developed by PM techniques. The aim of the experiment was to study the effect of increasing Sintering temperature on mechanical and tribological characteristics of the novel train brake pads. The materials prepared were sintered at three different temperatures (850 °C, 900 °C, and 950 °C). A high pressure pad-on-disk braking tester was developed to test the wear behavior of these materials without lubrication. Wear was measured by microscopic examination of the pad after the tribometer test. The tests showed that the coefficient of friction, wear rate and wear number were improved immensely by high temperature sintering. This means that, the level of the sintering temperature has significant effect on the performance of the braking material. Thereby, the tribological and the mechanical properties of the novel material were found to be temperature sensitive.