Lining Selection with Surrogate Brakes

Due to the dependence of friction on speed, pressure and temperature at the sliding interface, the same friction material exhibits varying friction characteristics in different brakes. For this reason, lining selection is typically carried out with design-intent brakes to capture the true behavior of friction materials. However, doing so necessitates prototype brakes and entails a long lead-time and high development costs.

This paper explores the feasibility of conducting friction, fade, and wear tests on brake dynamometers with readily available surrogate brakes. Both analytical scaling principles and experimental results are presented and discussed.