Abstract
The friction characteristics of automotive brake friction materials that contained different ceramic content were investigated. Several kinds of raw materials, such as resin-based binder, reinforcing fiber, friction restraint, abrasive, and filling materials were mixed, pressed, and heated in order to make the brake friction materials. The contents of SiC and $BaSO_4$ changed from 5 vol% to 20 vol%, respectively. In addition to this, the content of $Al_2O_3$ adjusted from 1 vol% to 16 vol%. The surface morphology of the SiC containing sample appeared rough while more debris was observed when the contents of SiC increased. This implies that the SiC containing brake composite was not adequate for the automobile. However, the relatively smooth surface was observed in samples that contained the $Al_2O_3$. But the roughness was low with a content of 11 vol% $Al_2O_3$ compared to the other samples. This is consistent with the abrasive properties of the samples. In the case of $BaSO_4$ containing samples, the smoothes surface was observed in the contents of 15 vol% $BaSO_4$. Thus, it was concluded that the 11 vol% $Al_2O_3$ and 15 vol% $BaSO_4$ containing composite would be the optimum content for the brake composite. Similar to the results of the surface morphology, the abrasion resistance consistently decreased when the content of SiC increased. On the contrary, the sample that contained 11 vol% $Al_2O_3$ and 15 vol% $BaSO_4$ showed the highest abrasion resistance compared to the other samples.
