Federal-Mogul Corporation has announced its latest line of brake pads. The range, entitled ‘Eco-Friction’, use low to zero-copper friction materials in their construction using a tribological fingerprinting process.
Driven by U.S legislation that suggests that Copper, as a material, may be eliminated from pad construction due to environmental concerns – despite the materials properties that reduce pad and rotor wear, noise and judder over a range of operating temperatures.
The tribological fingerprinting process develops datasets for each of the raw materials that make up a brake pad. The company’s scientists then screened 1,500 raw materials to identify alternative materials with the same wear and friction pattern across the same temperature range.
“Developing these comprehensive datasets has enabled Federal-Mogul to create higher-performance brake materials with shorter development times,” explains Frank Münchow, director of technology and innovation, Vehicle Safety and Protection, Federal-Mogul. “Standard brake pad product development requires several iterations. We are now able to replace a material with very high functionality, such as copper, in considerably less time than competitors, and we can validate an alternative material up to 50% faster depending on the material.”
“Federal-Mogul has succeeded in formulating low- and zero-copper low-steel and non-asbestos organic brake materials for our Eco-Friction range that provide outstanding braking performance and confidence using tribological fingerprinting,” added Ramzi Hermiz, Federal-Mogul’s senior vice president, Vehicle Safety and Protection. “This process has given us deeper insight into the complex chemical characteristics and relationships within a brake pad’s friction material and has reduced the time required to identify optimum solutions. The approach means we have the tools to eliminate copper more efficiently and to deliver custom solutions more quickly.”
