PALM KERNEL REINFORCED COMPOSITES FOR

BRAKE PAD APPLICATIONS

SACHIN VP
S7 ME-47
GECK
2 CONTENTS
 INTRODUCTION
 ASBESTOS AND ITS LIMITATIONS
 BRAKE PADS BASED ON NATURAL FIBERS
 EXPERIMENT SETUP
 TESTS
 RESULTS
 WEAR PROPERTIES
 HARDNESS PROPERTIES
 OIL ABSORPTION PROPERTIES
 CONCLUSIONS
 REFERENCE
3 INTRODUCTION
 Brake pads are used in the braking systems of automobiles
and other vehicles and machines to control the speed by
converting kinetic energy of the vehicles to heat which is
dissipated to the atmosphere.
 Brake pads are steel backing plate with friction material
bound to the surface facing the disc.
 The demand on the brake pads are such that they must
possess high friction coefficient with the brake disc and not
decompose or breakdown in such a way that the friction
coefficient with the brake disc is not compromised at high
temperature.
 ASBESTOS AND ITS LIMITATIONS
4

Asbestos are group of six naturally occurring fibrous minerals composed of

thin, needle like fibres. Brake pads generally consist of asbestos embedded
in polymeric matrix along with several other ingredients because it was
seemed to make good sense of friction control and withstanding high heats
associated with stopping moving parts. The use of asbestos material is being
avoided to manufacture the brake pads as it is harmful and toxic in nature.
Further it leads to various health issues like asbestosis, mesothelioma and
lung cancers. Past exposure to asbestoses currently kills around 4000 people
a year in Great Britain.
 BRAKE PADS BASED ON NARURAL FIBERS
5
 The asbestos based brake pads can be replaced by natural fibres like palm
kernel(0-50%), Nile roses(0-15%) and wheat(0-10%) with additives like
aluminium oxide(5%-20%) and graphite powder(10%-35%).
 phenolic resin of 35% is utilized as a binder. It produces good bonding
nature to fibre.
 Particulate Nile roses are used to increase the friction coefficient and
wheat powder is used to reduce the wear rate.
 Aluminium oxide and graphite are abrasive in nature. This helps to make
brake pads with high friction coefficient and less wear rate with low noise
pollution.
 The wear of the proposed composites have been investigated at different
speeds. various tests like wear on pin-on-disc apparatus, hardness on the
Rockwell hardness apparatus and oil absorption test have been
conducted.
 The experiment is conducted to indicate that palm kernel shell could be a
suitable alternative for asbestos in friction coating materials.
6 EXPERIMENT SETUP
MATERIALS
 Palm kernel fibre, Nile rose fibre and wheat fibre are treated with
NaOH and were ground into powder of required size.
 Palm kernel fibre of palm kernel that is particulate is mixed with
Aluminium oxide powder and graphite powder in definite
proportion is called as Type-1 composites and particulate palm
kernel fibre mixed with powders of Nile rose, wheat, Aluminium and
graphite in definite proportions is called as Type-2 composites.

PALM KERNEL FIBER NILE ROSE FIBER WHEAT FIBER

7 EXPERIMENT SETUP
ALKALI TREATMENT
 The collected fibres were suspended in a solution of caustic soda for
one day to remove the amount of red oil left after extraction. The
fibres then watered to remove the caustic soda and is exposed to
sunlight for one week. The dehydrated fibres were ground int
powder form using hammer mill.
COMPOSITE PREPARATION
 The prepared powders of different fibres are mixed with particulate
aluminium oxide and graphite as type-1 and type-2 composites in
different volume fractions and are named as samples s1,s2,s3,s4
and s5.
 Type-1 and Type-2 composites with different volume fractions of
fibres are shown in table 1 and table 2.
8
9 TESTS
WEAR TEST
 The wear characteristics of Type-1 and Type-2 composites as a function of volume
fractions of palm kernel, Nile rose and wheat fibres at various speeds (350 rpm,
450 rpm, 550 rpm) measured by using a pin on the disc wear testing machine.
 The sample is of cylindrical in shape of size 8mm in diameter and 30mm length
were prepared for all compositions of fibres. These tests were carried out at load
of 20KN at different speed conditions.
 The Wear rate is calculated by
Ws = dm/(L*p*F)
where Ws is specific wear rate, dm is a weight difference, L is sliding distance of
specimen and F is applied load and p is density of fibres.

Wear testing specimens at different volume fractions of the fiber

10 TESTS
HARDNESS TEST
 The hardness of the composites as a fun of volume fractions of fibres
were measured using Rockwell hardness testing machine. The samples
of size 25mm*25mm*6mm were prepared for different compositions of
fibres.

Hardness testing specimens at different volume fractions of fiber

OIL ABSORPTION TEST

 Oil Absorption tests conducted as a function of volume fraction of
various fibres to find the ability of the composites to absorb different oils.
 The test was conducted for 5 days at a room temperature.
11 TESTS
 The size of the samples prepared are of 7.6cm*2.54cm*0.5cm.
 The absorption coefficient can be calculated by
oil absorption coefficient (%) = (Wf-Wi)/Wf * 100
Where Wi and Wf are weights of the samples before and later immersion
of the specimen in SAE 10 oil.

Oil Absorption testing specimens at different volume fractions of the fibre

12 RESULTS
 The palm kernel fibres are mainly contains semi metals and non metals
like K, Ca, Fe, Cr, Ba etc. These elements are also found in asbestos.
 The comparison of asbestos and palm kernel based brake lining
formulations are collected and it shows that palm kernel fibres can be
used in the production of brake pads.


Comparison of palm kernel brake lining formulation with asbestos
13 WEAR PROPERTIES
 The wear results of Type-1 composites show that the specific wear rate increases
as fibre content increases up to certain extent. Later the specific wear rate
decreases because of fibre matrix adhesion. In case of higher fibre contents the
tested composites may cause to strong adhesion of fibre with resin.
 The wear results of Type-2 composites show that the graph is sometimes
decreasing and sometimes increasing. It depends upon the adhesion properties
of particulate Nile rose and wheat with resin. As the strong adhesion of the natural
fibres with resin gives good wear resistance to composites.

Effect of volume fraction on wear rate of type-1 composites Effect of volume fraction on wear rate of type-2 composites
14 HARDNESS PROPERTIES
 From the test it is observed that the hardness of the composites increases
with the increase in the fibre content. Usually the fibre content increases
the modulus of the composites which upturns the hardness of the fibre. It is
because hardness is a function of relative fibre volume.
 From the figure it is concluded that type-2 composites have more hardness
value than type-1 at maximum volume fraction of fibre content.

Effect of volume fraction of the fibre on hardness of various composites

15 OIL ABSORPTION PROPERTIES
 From the test it shows that, when volume fraction of the fibre increases the oil
absorption content of the composites increases.
 The graphs indicates that type-1 composites have less oil absorption capacity as
compared to type-2 composites.
 It is because, in type-1 composites, palm kernel absorbs more resin and this resin
absorbs less oil. But in type-2 composites the wheat and Nile rose attracts more oil
which leads to more oil absorption.

Oil absorption for different volume fractions of the fibre for type-1 oil absorption for different volume fractions of the fibre for type-2
16 CONCLUSIONS
 From the results, it shows that the strong adhesion of fibre with resin
gives good wear resistance to the composites. It gives wear rate of
0.00044 which is less compared to wear rate of asbestos.
 The palm kernel reinforced composites have good hardness
properties as compared to asbestos.
 The oil absorption % of palm kernel fibre is 0.44 which is higher than
oil absorption % of asbestos which is 0.30.
 Based on the observations, it can be concluded that the tested
natural fibres can replace asbestos in reinforcing the friction
composites.
17 REFERENCES
 Satish pujari, S. srikiran. Experimental investigation on wear properties of
palm kernel reinforced composites for brake pad applications. Defence
Technology Volume 15, Issue 3, June 2019 ,pages 295-299.
 Ikpambese kk, Gundu DT, Tuleun LT. Evaluation of palm kernel fibres (PKFs)
for production of asbestos-free automotive brake pads. Journal of king
saud university engineering science 2016;28:110e8.
 Yallew TB, Kumar p, Singh I. Sliding wear properties of jute fabric reinforced
polypropylene composites. Procedia Engineering 2014;97:402e11.
18

THANK YOU