Reviews in Automobile Brake Pads Production and Prospects of Agro Base Composites of Cashew Nut Shells and Nigerian Gum Arabic Binder.

Abstract

The reviews of automobile brake pad production processes, formulations, materials, and properties revealed most works attempt mainly on replacing asbestos found to be carcinogenic with base materials with other ingredients in various formulations and particle sizes. The overview of these trends suggests the need to replace not only the asbestos but also the commonly used epoxy resins or phenolic resins or phenol formaldehyde binders that has been found to corrode outside plates of brake assembly. Therefore, this paper thrust a new research direction of replacing the asbestos and inorganic resins with agro based materials of Cashew Nut Shell and Plant Gum binder respectively to obtain a substantially green based brake pads that are non-injurious to human health and does not corrode any parts of the brake pads assembly. Taguchi design of experimental method was deployed to formulate twenty seven (27) different formulations with the help of Minitab Software approach. The particle size of the compositions was 300µm and the produced composites have favourable properties such as BHN, Compressive Strength, coefficient of friction, wear rate and very high ash content retention suggesting good thermal capacity of the brake pads. The values obtained respectively are 76.66BHN,12.187N/mm2, 0.4848, 1.16mg/m and 97.71%.