A wear rate model incorporating inflationary cost of agro-waste filled composites for brake pad applications to lower composite cost

Abstract

Wear rate appraisals are currently indispensable on agro-waste filled composites for brake pads as they predict the expected lifespan of the materials. However, existing wear rate models are inaccurate as predictions omit the inflationary cost of the materials. In this paper, the idea is to account for the inflationary cost of the materials and adjust that into a pseudo wear rate model. The wear rate of agro-waste fillers in an organic matrix to create brake pads under dry sliding wear experiments was considered. Five composite specimens were fabricated in cylindrical specimen height of 14.5 mm and varying diameters of 8, 10, 12 and 15.5 mm and the material wear loss was measured. The 8, 10 and 12 mm diameter specimens revealed that the composite with the best and worst wear resistance were the wear rates of 0.6, 1.4, 1.73 mm ³/Nm, and 3.07, 3.54, 4.19 mm ³/Nm, respectively. The 15.5 mm diameter specimen showed lower wear rates of 2.13 and 2.14 and 1.56 mm ³/Nm than commercial brake pad’s 2.58 mm ³/Nm. The pseudo wear rate model predicts the impact of the independent variable i.e. inflationary cost, opportunity cost, time, and sample size. The utility of this effort is to assist the composite manufacturers to take cost-effective decisions and design optimisation can be accomplished to lower the cost of composite products.