Development of Asbestos Free Brake-Pad Using Banana Peel Hybrid Composite

Abstract

Brakes are the most important mechanism on a vehicle. Even though there are two types of brakes available in the vehicle (disc type and drum type); disc brakes are widely used for reducing velocity, with their characteristics of braking stability, controllability and their ability to provide a wide ranging torques. Disc brakes have different components like; brake pad, brake disc, caliper, brake lining etc. During braking both the brake pad lining and disc surface get worn. The conventional material used in brake pad lining is asbestos which is dangerous for human health because of its carcinogenic nature. So to reduce these negative effects, there is a need to use eco-friendly materials in place of asbestos in brake pad lining. In this work a new brake pad was produced using banana peels waste to replace asbestos. The activities involved in this work are like, preparation of composite, testing its characteristics and preparing brake pad lining with banana peel composite. Banana peels were collected, dried and milled in to powder form. Then composite was prepared by mixing with carbon powder and predetermined epoxy-hardener. The percentage of carbon powder was varied in the composite and mechanical and wear properties of the brake pad were studied. As the result the developed banana peel brake pad has 0.021 mg/m wear rate, 110MPa amount of Compressive strength and 2.06 amount of Tensile strength, so the commercial brake pad has high wear rate and very high compressive and Tensile strength than that of the developed brake pad. Generally the developed brake pad is better than the existing brake pad