Shear Stress Analysis in Palm Kernel Shell Reinforced Brake Linings

The load applied to the pad during breaking to slow the moving vehicle tends to cause shear in the pad material as it rubs on the disc surface. Depending on the nature and composition of the pad material, the load application and the resulting shear stress can cause considerable changes in the structure of the pad due to the elevated temperature arising from the friction process. This work focuses on estimating the shear stress of an organic brake lining using Matlab PDE Toolbox and propose the best particle size for palm kernel shell (PKS) based friction lining manufacture. To achieve this, properties of organic brake lining developed using various particle sizes (0.212, 0.300, 0.425 and 0.600 mm) of PKS powder as reinforcement were determined in order to be used in a partial differential equation suitable to be processed in Matlab. Under shear stress and at elevated temperature, all the materials presented a considerable percentage of volume loss. S0.300exhibited the least applied shear stress value of 3MPa and S0.425 with the highest applied shear stress (4MPa), S0.212 being closer to S0.600 with 3.5 MPa. These values corresponded well with what is obtained in the literature.