Production and Testing of Brake Pad Composites made from Cashew Nut Shells and Plant Gum Binder

Abstract

Asbestos, Formaldehyde, phenolic and epoxy resins have been used for so long as automobile brake pads materials because of their good physical and chemical properties. However, due to the health hazard associated especially with handling, several alternative materials are being increasingly considered. This paper presents a new asbestos free brake pad composites developed from agro waste material based of cashew nut shells, Nigerian plant gum along with other ingredients such as steel dust, graphite and silicon carbide. While the cashew nut shells replaced the asbestos for carcinogenic concerns, the equally toxic and commonly used epoxy resin binder is replaced with a plant gum binder known as Nigerian Gum Arabic. The experiment in this study was based on Taguchi Design of Experiment (DOE) and L2735 orthogonal array where twenty- seven (27) brake pad composites were produced following the standard procedures of compression moulding. The cashew nut shells were particled into 100μm sieve size. The optimal hardness, compressive strength, wear rate and Coefficient of friction of the composites were 76.66 BHN, 17.197N/mm2,1.16 and 0.5632 respectively.