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International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:09 No:09

63

An Investigation Toward Development Of


Economical Brake Lining Wear Alert System
Sivarao, M. Amarnath, M.S.Rizal and A.Kamely
Abstract

Brakes and tires are the major contributors for


catastrophic failure of ground vehicles. Braking system is the
utmost important besides tire to ensure the safety of users and
vehicle. Ensuring good condition of brake lining is very crucial
to ensure the efficiency of the braking system, where, the worn
off brake lining not only endangers life but also damages the
entire brake associated parts such as hub, disk, shaft, etc. In
this paper, Malaysian made luxury car Proton Perdana V6
brake pads were investigated to be embedded with a lining
wear limit alert system. The current spring steel alert system
has some drawbacks where, the alerting sound is only activated
while the car moves and secondly, when the car is on move ,
rarely the alerting sound reaches the driver. Therefore, a
critical investigation of the existing pads manufactured in
Malaysia and their characterizations are conducted to identify
the most suitable sensor spot on the brake pad. Later, a micro
sensor is embedded into the pad and fully tested on a specially
designed test rig. The evaluation of thickness, hardness, layer
properties and critical wear region has enabled the spotting of
exact sensor location. The embedment of the micro switch was
successfully done and tested to be very efficient in alerting the
driver upon reaching the maximum lining wear limit.

Index Term

Brake lining monitoring system, Micro


switch, micro sensing, brake pad evaluation.

I.
INTRODUCTION
Braking system is the single most important safety feature
of every vehicle on the road. The ability of the braking
system to bring a vehicle to safe controlled stop is
absolutely essential in preventing accidental vehicle damage
and personal injury. The braking system is composed of
many parts, including friction pads on each wheel, a master
cylinder, wheel cylinders, and a hydraulic control system.
The disk braking system uses brake pads with lining as
shown in Fig. 1, where semi-metallic linings are used in
common because of their ability to withstand higher
operating temperatures. The lining is riveted, bonded, or
mould-bonded to the pad backing. The trailing end of a pad
is always hotter than the leading end, and therefore that
region wears more rapidly and causes excessive taper wear
which leads to excessive flex and a low brake pedal.
Ir. Sivarao is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) in the field of Mechanical
Engineering who currently serves as a lecturer and researcher in the Faculty
of Manufacturing engineering, Universiti T eknikal Malaysia Melaka
(UT eM). He is the corresponding author. (phone: 6 063316505, Fax:
6063316411 & email: sivarao@utem.edu.my or kpe_siva@yahoo.com).
Dr. M.Amarnath is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical
Engineering, PDPM-Indian Institute of Information T echnology Design
and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India. His field of research interests are
Condition monitoring of machinery, T ribology and Lubrication
Dr. M.S.Rizal is the Dean of Manufacturing Engineering Faculty,
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. His area of interest is machining,
manufacturing optimization.
Dr. A. Kamely is currently the head of Manufacturing Process Department,
Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti T eknikal Malaysia
Melaka. His area of interest is more towards manufacturing process,
especially machining.

Fig. 1. Brake pad lining

This research is aimed to determine the capability of using


micro sensor to detect the wear limit of a brake pad lining.
Brake pads from two established Malaysian manufacturers
namely M and A (abbreviated to prevent disclosure of the
manufacturers) were selected to make comparative analysis
to mount the sensor on the better one. The current problem
faced by the vehicle owners are, they do not know condition
of the brake pads, whether there are still good or need to be
replaced. Even, one is scheduled for the periodical
replacement, yet there will be cases where they are replaced
when actually the linings are still in good condition. If the
linings are used without replacement after the lining exceeds
its safety wear limit, the backing plate of the pad will
damage the disk rotor which would cause the newly
replaced lining to wear at faster rate due to the disks rough
surface. Therefore, the disk has to be skimmed and when the
disk undergoes skimming process , it loses its mechanical
properties which will easily deform / damage its originality.
Prior to that, the skimmed disk will be thinner and impact of
inertia while moving will affect the brake associated parts
which may bring disaster to the user due to rapidly reduced
braking performance and efficiency.
At the moment, Proton Perdana V6 users are alerted by
mechanical noise which produced by mechanical touch
sensing technique using spring steel when the safety wear
limit is reached. Unfortunately, this system alerts only when
the car is on move and secondly, when the car is on move,
rarely the alert reaches drivers ear. Therefore, this
investigation is expected to initiate an economical sensing
technique to be incorporated into Perdana V6 in nearest
coming future.
II.
BACKGROUND
This research aims to determine the suitable location on of
the lining to place the wear limit sensor by carrying out
tests. The experimental job and brake pad evaluation should
decide on which lining and where the sensor should be
embedded. At present, there is no pilot indication of lining
safety limit on local cars. The currently used mechanical
spring type is worried to be ineffective as the conducted
survey shows that many are unaware of its existence on their
car. A specially design test rig was developed with full set
of Proton Perdana V6 braking and drive systems for proper

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International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:9 No:09

evaluation and validation of the developed sensor embedded


brake lining monitoring system. The suitability and accuracy
of sensing also studied to provide allowance for the user to
change the pads upon the pilot lamp illumination . The
methodology of entire research work is simplified in block
form as shown in Fig. 2.
Study of lining wear and life span
Sensor spot identification
Sensor evaluation & selection
Te st rig development for Proton Perdana V6

M odification of brake pad lining


Embedding the sensor to the pad
Dynamic testing and validation
Fig. 2. Methodology to complete brake pad wear monitoring
system

III.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review within the scope of research found to
be very limited and the most related available investigations
are reviewed. The recent investigation by N. Chand, S.A.R.
Hashimi, S Lomash and A Naik was towards development
of asbestos free brake pad. This experiment focuses on
physical of new material asbestos -free with wear properties.
From their experiment, it is said that the asbestos-free
friction lining material can be used for brake as well as other
friction lining applications [1]. Mikael Eriksson, Filip
Bergman, Staffan Jacobson have investigated the surface
characterization of brake pads after running under silent and
squealing conditions. This experiment focuses on the
previously almost unexplored area of the connection
between brake pad surface topography and the occurrence of
squeals. From the experimental result, they indicated that
pads with many small contact plateaus have a larger
tendency to generate squeal than pads with a few large
plateaus. Moreover in the silent pressure interval, the size of
the contact plateaus increases rapidly with brake pressure
[2].
Friction layers and friction films on PMC brake pads were
investigated by W. Osterle, I. Urban, using Focused Ion
Beam (FIB) technique, where, it was used to characterize
superficial layers at micro-contact areas of a commercial
brake pad. The friction material was a polymer matrix
composite (PMC) with approximately 50% metal content
(semi-metallic) and the counter part was a cast iron rotor.
Experiment depending on the constituent of the pad, one,
two or three layers were identified. The experiment was
mainly to show that the FIB technique provides additional
information which in combination with the more
conventional techniques LM, SEM and TEM increases the
knowledge on the role of third body formation and
superficial layers on brake pads [3]. Zmago Stadler,
Kristoffer Krnel and Tomaz Kosmac have researched
friction behaviour of sintered metallic brake pads on a C/CSiC composite brake disc. This experiment was aimed

64

studying on the frictional and wear properties of sintered


metallic (MMC) brake linings in combination with a C/C
SiC brake disc. From the result, they conclude that the
friction performance of MMC-type bake pads on a C/CSiC
brake disc is dependent on the base metallic matrix
composition and formation of a friction layer on the brake
pad surface [4].
The effect of metal fibers on the friction performance of
automotive brake friction materials were investigated by H.
Jang, K. Ko, S.J. Kim, R.H. Basch and J.W. Fash [5]. This
experiment investigates the effect of different metallic fibers
upon friction and wear performance of various brake friction
couples. The results showed that, when gray cast iron was
used as a counter disk at low temperatures, the friction
materials containing copper or steel fibers showed high
speed sensitivity. M. Boniardi, F. DErrico, C. Tagliabue ,
G. Gotti and G. Perricone [6] have investigated failure
analysis of a motorcycle brake disc. The failure has been
studied on small cracks on the disc brake. These cracks were
mainly located nearby the holes placed on flange to ventilate
and refresh pads. From the result, it is stated that the
lifespan of a motorcycle brake disc depends strictly on the
geometry (position of holes, shape of spokes, etc.), the
material properties at high temperatures and operating
conditions.
Werner Osterle and Ingrid Urban [7] investigated about
third body formation on brake and rotors. The experiment
was focused on the surfaces of a brake pad and rotor after a
run-in period during which a stable coefficient of friction
had been developed. The Focused Ion Beam technique
(FIB) was used to reveal tribologically induced surface films
and for cross-sectional preparation of superficial layers. It
was found that, there definitely exists a third body at the
surfaces of both counterparts and it comprises of a
nanocrystalline microstructure which
implies that
investigations on the nanometre scale are essential for
understanding the frictional behaviours of such contacts.
Micro contact areas or contact patches will not be stable
during tribological stressing but a dynamic equilibrium
between initiation, growth and degradation of contact
patches will take place.
IV.
BRAKE PAD EVOLUTION
The evaluation and comparative analysis carried out are
detailed next. New sets of brake pads namely M and A has
been used in this evaluation together with the s ame make of
used linings which were obtained from Malaysia official car
service station, EON service centre. Five samples were used
for each evaluation in order to prevent statistical biasness.
A. Thickness
The height of the lining from the backing plate was carried
out. The measuring is conducted as shown in Fig. 3. The
purpose of measuring lining thickness is to investigate the
variations of newly produced pads.

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65

Fig. 3. Distance of measuring thickness

The evaluated numerical are tabulated in Table I and it


indicates that pad M possesses almost same height at all
points as compared to Pad A.
Fig. 5. T he schematic of piston and the pads
T ABLE I
Height of the lining for M and A pads

H
Thickness
Thicknes
eA
(mm)
pad
s15.7 (mm)
16.0
B
10.0
10.8
i
M
pad A
C
5.5
5.8
gD
6.0
5.0
h
B. Influence tof master pump and wheel pump on lining
wear
In this evaluation, the lining of all four brake assemblies
were examined critically. This observation is to confirm
whether the distance of pad from the master pump gives any
effect on the lining wear. In addition to that, the pad on the
piston side and calliper side were also critically analyzed to
see if the effect of floating brake system affects the wear
pattern of the lining. The master pump location of Perdana
V6 is shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 6. T he caliper, rotor and disk assembly

C. Wear pattern study


To investigate the wear trend of the pads, the original worn
linings of Proton Perdana V6 for all the four wheels marked
into eight (8) sections as shown in Fig. 7. Later, the
measurements were made by vernier caliper at all the 8
points as shown (0 to 7).
Fig. 4. Proton Perdana V6 master pump location (driver side)

From the observations of five complete sample sets, it is


found that the lining wear is inverse proportional to the
distance from the master pump, where the nearest to master
pump wears slightly more that the further ones.
Investigation of the wear pattern for the linings on the left
hand and right hand side of the rotor disk also witnessed
some differences. From the driver seat view, it is found that
the pad on the left hand side has worn more than the other.
From the study, it was found that the reason for this is just
because the piston on wheel reacts and pushes the piston
side pad first before pulling the other side pad to the disk. It
is clearly shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. T he marked sections of used brake pad

With regard of the master pump and wheel caliper affect


onto the lining wear, some evaluations have been made.
From the observations, the wear pattern is noticed to be
almost experiencing same trend for all the sets evaluated.
Besides that, the linings also experience taper wear, where,
section A as referred to fig. 6 was found to wear more than
the next wing of the brake pad. From the observed data
tabulated in Table 2, it is clear that the piston side pad lining
wears more than the other side for the wheel which is
nearest to the master pump (in this case, front wheel on
drivers side).

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T ABLE II

Wear pattern study of used brake pads


Right Disk
(driver
Left Disk
side)
P
C
C
P
i
a
a
i
s
l
l
s
t
i
i
t
o
p
p
o
n
e
e
n
r
r
P
S
S
o
i
S
S
i
i
d
i
i
d
n
e
d
d
e
t
e
e
T
T
T
T
h
h
h
h
i
i
i
i
c
c
c
c
k
k
k
k

(
m
m
)
1
2
.
0
1
3
.
5
1
3
.
5
1
3
.
4
1
3
.
4
1
3
.
3
1
3
.
3
1
2
.
0

(
m
m
)
1
2
.
0
1
4
.
3
1
4
.
3
1
4
.
7
1
4
.
4
1
4
.
4
1
4
.
2
1
2
.
0

(
m
m
)
1
2
.
0
1
4
.
7
1
4
.
5
1
4
.
3
1
4
.
3
1
4
.
1
1
4
.
0
1
2
.
0

(
m
m
)
1
2
.
0
1
4
.
2
1
4
.
2
1
4
.
3
1
4
.
4
1
4
.
4
1
4
.
4
1
2
.
0

66

D. Hardness
For further evaluation, the new brake pads from
manufacturer M and A were tested for hardness at four
different depths of lining using hardness testing machine as
shown in Fig. 8. The pad has been tested for hardness
starting from 1mm below the original top surface, and
further tested for every depth of 2mm till it reaches 7mm as
shown in Fig. 9. Each pad was divided into two wings (A &
B) and five points were identified to test hardness on each
wing for both side pads of the disk as shown in Fig. 10 and
every layer has been tested for the hardness at the same
points as marked.

Fig. 8. Hardness testing

Fig. 9. Depth of pad to test the hardness.

Fig. 10. Hardness tested spots

The purpose of this experiment is to study the hardness


region change in pad over the depth. This is because the
brake pad manufacturer had stated a pad concave as their
limit specification. From the result observed, as the depth
(wear) increases the hardness of the brake pad also found to
be higher. When the pad surface is harder, it will reduce the
braking efficiency and together, will damage the disc brake.
From the evaluation, the hardness of both pad manufactures
increased proportionally with the lining depth. From, Table
3, pad of manufacturer A was not as hard as pad M
manufacturer. This shows that the A manufacturer was not
standardizing their brake pad limit parallel with concave of
brake pad production. As a result, the M brake pad has been
selected as brake pad for wear limit sensor embedding and
development.

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T ABLE III

Comparative hardness of M and A brake pads


Depth
1mm
3mm
5mm
7mm

M Manufacturer
A
B
28.80
33.60
37.60
35.00
66.20
38.10
65.10
80.40

C
38.10
39.80
89.30
69.40

D
31.10
26.40
57.30
34.30

E
35.50
48.50
87.40
90.34

Average
33.42
(HRc)
37.46
67.66
67.91

1mm
3mm
5mm
7mm

A Manufacturer
A
B
46.30
26.10
24.00
30.30
33.20
33.60
34.60
37.60

C
28.80
26.70
34.10
38.70

D
41.00
31.10
38.10
35.50

E
22.70
15.90
17.60
12.00

Average
32.98
(HRc)
25.60
31.32
31.68

V.
SENSOR SPOT IDENTIFICATION
From the evaluated data sets of brake pad manufacturer M
and A, it shows that M brake
pad is the
more suitable to be used as the specimen for embedding the
wear limit sensor. Therefore, M brake pad was selected to
embed the sensor summarizing:

maintained and should not disturb the sitting of the original


position and easy installation should be possible. Fig . 12
shows the redesign and modification done onto selected
sensor spot of a brake pad.

Driver side pad assembly


Pump side pad
Wing A of the pad
Depth of sensing is between 5mm to 6 mm (Fig. 6)
Between location 6 & 7 in pattern study (Fig. 8)
From the findings summary, the pad is designed to be as
shown in Fig. 11. Therefore, a new pad from M
manufacturer is to be modified to embed a micro sensor.

Fig. 12. Sensor spot design

Finally, after a tedious study and investigation, the sensor


was successfully embedded at the designed spot as shown in
Fig. 13.

Fig. 11. T he targeted sensor spot and recommendat ions

SENSOR EMBEDDMENT A ND VALIDAT ION


To continue the work, sensors were selected and evaluated.
Upon completion of sensor embedment, the brake pad was
tested test rig to validate the application. The details of each
step until it is fully developed is illustrated next.
A. Selection of sensor
Among the sensors considered were micro switch sensor,
magnetic sensor, optical sensor, photoelectric sensor,
infrared reflectance sensor. Based on the criteria of size,
durability, simplicity and costing, micro switch has been
selected for sensing the lining safety limit.

C. Design and Development of Test Rig


The design of test rig was started when the component of rig
completed. The component involved such as drive shaft,
disc brake component, brake pump, master pump, brake
pedal, electric motor, belt, pulley, etc. It also consists of a
pilot lamp for the indication purpose. The test rig developed
and its components are as shown in Fig. 14 with labels,
where;
Pilot lamp (illuminates when danger limit reached)
Master cylinder / Servo
Brake pedal
Drive shaft
Driving motor
Driven pulley
Brake assembly
Test rig
Brake piping
Wheel cylinder

B. Sensor Embedment
After the selection of sensor was done, location spot is
determined based on the design done. The embedding of the
sensor and building-up the system was a great challenge. It
is done in such a way that the originality or the pad is

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68

prototype and further investigations are to be carried out to


validate the perfection in detection and also the
investigation of extended use of the lining after the warning
light is illuminated. The idea of embedding the electronic
sensor and test it dynamically has been achieved successful.
This technique is now proposed to the brake pad
manufacturer, so that, the embedding can be done at the
plant level before the asbestos lamination and bounding to
the backing plate.
Fig. 13. Embedded sensor to the brake pad

VII.
CONCLUSIONS
With the consideration of economical and practical project
development, this approach has been tested and found to be
valid. This simple and cheap solution of detecting the lining
wear safety limit by alerting user is expected to help many
brake pad manufactures to embed the sensor to the most
sensitive position of the pad based on the proposed
methodology to provide safety and cost effective motoring.
A CKNOLEDGEM ENT
The authors would like to render their sincere thanks to the
top level management of research and development team in
University Technical Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) for funding
this short term research project (Project number S183). The
authors would also express their sincere appreciation and
thanks to the brake pad manufacturers who directly
involved in this research and willing to share their expertise
and knowledge.

Fig. 14. Developed brake pad being tested on test rig

D- VALIDATION W EAR A LERT SYSTEM


From the testing of brake pad sensor, the result indicates
that sensor can detect after the pad reaches the set limit. The
circuit was also successful, as the pilot lamp illuminates
upon reaching the safety limit as shown in Fig. 15.

REFERENCES

[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

Lining wear
warning
Pilot lamp

[5]
[6]
[7]

Fig. 15. Lining wear warning pilot lamp

N. Chand, AR Hashmi, S. Lomash, A Naik, Development


of
Asbestos Free Brake Pad. Wear, Vol. 85, pp. 13-16. 2004.
Mikael Eriksson, Filip Bergman, Staffan Jacobson, Surface
characterization of brake pads after running under silent and
squealing conditions Wear, Vol. 63, pp.163-167, 1999.
W.Osterle, I.Urban, Friction layers and friction films on PMC
brake pads Wear, Vol. 86, pp.215-226, 2004.
Zmago Stadler, et al., Friction behavior of sintered metallic brake
pads on a C/C-SiC composite brake disc Journal of the European
Ceramic Society, pp. 1-7, 2006.
H. Jang, et al. T he effect of metal fibres on the friction
performance of automotive brake friction materials Wear, Vol. 88,
pp.406-414.
M. Boniardi, et al., Failure analysis of a motorcycle brake disc
Journal of Engineering Failure Analysis, Vol. 35, pp. 933-945,
2006.
Werner Osterle & Ingrid Urban, T hird body formation on brake
pads and rotors Journal of Tribology International, Vol. 11, pp.
401-408, 2006.

VI.
RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS
The objective to design and develop brake pad wear
monitoring system for Proton Perdana V6 is successful
through the entire plan, design, analysis, modification,
development, testing and validation. The wear sensing
micro switch functioned well after few ways of embedding
techniques were tried. It detects lining wear safety limit by
touching the rotor disk just before exceeding the brake pad
lining limit. The sensor used suits well with the design of an
existing pad where the modification done did not disturb the
original function and purpose and can be installed into brake
housing as usual. However, it is not easy to modify or redesign the break pad, where over modified will affect the
limits of detection. This development is considered as first

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