Brake wear mechanism and particulate formation

Abstract

Wear of the braking system’s friction elements, which have the basic task of creating a braking torque at the wheel, leads to the formation of particles. Different types of tribological wear are present in the friction couples. The analysis of braking system’s friction pairs, i.e. their structure, led to the conclusion why and how particles that are products of wear occur. Particles are formed mainly by adhesive, abrasive and fatigue wear by friction pairs. Wear and particle formation occur by tearing off the peaks of macro and micro irregularities on the friction layers of the friction elements. Such irregularities can be of different sizes, and the size of the formed particle depends on the moment when they crack. It can be concluded that the size of wear particles is directly related to the wear pattern and the size of the micro-irregularities of the friction surfaces.