Wear 254 (2003) 852858

On the dynamics of the friction coefcient

G.P. Ostermeyer
Institute of Dynamics and Vibrations, Technical University of Braunschweig, Postfach 3329, D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany

Abstract The paper deals with the principal wear mechanism in brake systems and introduces a new dynamical model of the friction coefcient, where necessarily both friction and wear are taken into account. This model explains many open questions on the principal functionality of brake systems. In brake systems, characteristic structures are formed in the contact area by the ow of wear particles. Modulated by the friction power the wear particles are used by the system to build up hard contact patches on the brake pad. Nearly all energetic dissipation of the system is concentrated on these patches. By wear, these contact patches are destroyed after some time. So the friction coefcient is given by the equilibrium of ow of birth and death of contact patches. The resulting dynamical model describes the dynamical behaviour of the friction coefcient and the dependence of the temperature in the friction layer. This theory explains the fading effect of brake systems as well as complex hysteretic effects in the diagram of the friction coefcient versus the velocity, known from instationary measurement procedures. The structure of this theory seems to be quite general to describe other frictional systems too. 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Instationary friction; Dynamic friction; Brake system; Dynamic model of friction; Fading; Hot banding

1. Introduction Whether friction is a very well-known effect in technical systems, the prediction and design of this dynamic friction coefcient in general is not possible yet. With respect to friction very famous technical systems are brake systems (see Fig. 1). The aim of engineering design is to maximize friction forcesthat is the task, the system is forand to minimize wear for long lifetime of the technical system. The brake pads usually consists of more than 20 different components. In the contact zone between pad and disk a highly complex tribological surface layer modulate the frictional behaviour of the system. The chemical composition of pads seems to be only a warehouse for the friction process to build up these structured layers in the contact zones. The optical characterizing of these tribological surfaces on a microscopic level just starts [1,2]. The connection between component mixture and friction layer and the connection between friction layer and friction behaviour of the system is not known yet. So every pad factory deals with their own formulas for pad production.

Tel.: +49-531-391-7000; fax: +49-531-391-7017. E-mail address: gp.ostermeyer@tu-bs.de (G.P. Ostermeyer).

Optimizations with respect to pad composition have to be done by trial and error. Whether the friction process in brake systems is physically not understood, the friction process in brake systems has some remarkable properties, for a review see f.i. [3]. Usually the friction coefcient has values between 0.1 and 0.7. It decreases with disk heat and friction power. In automotive cars the friction power ranges up to about 500 W/cm2 and the integral temperature in the contact zone can reach values of 300 C. In brake systems the friction coefcient shows a decreasing behaviour, when the tangential velocity v or the normal load N on the brake pad is increased. This effect of decreasing friction coefcient with respect to growing friction power is called the fading effect. One aim of modern brake system design is to avoid this fading effect. The thermal load in the brake pad contact surface is not build up homogeneously. Long time experiments show hot rings on the disk, moving rather periodically within the contact region on the disk by changing their radius. This is called the hot banding effect. A further effect known from brake systems and also from clutch systems are periodical changes of itself with respect to time. There are to be found several different regimes of frequencies. The time periods of these vibrations varies

0043-1648/03/$ see front matter 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0043-1648(03)00235-7

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Fig. 1. Principle design of brake systems.

Fig. 3. Principle brake pad structure.

from some hours down to frequencies of 20 Hz. Physical explanations for these effects are unknown. This paper deals with principal mechanisms of wear dynamics in the contact zone leading to the characteristic structure of friction layer on the brake pad. Consequence is a simple differential equation of second order for the friction coefcient explaining the effects named above.

2. Dynamics of wear in brake systems An optical analysis of the friction layer of brake pads shows typical structures on the friction layer of the brake pad. These structures are rather smooth patches characterized by tear-off edges and many very small wear particles. A typical REM-picture is shown in Fig. 2. On a macroscopic scale nearly the same geometrical structures are generated, when wood is polished with emery paper. The abrasive particles xed on the paper then produce wood powder, which is moving through the contact zone. The local heat of the grinding process forms thin and hard wood patches on the emery paper from the powder ow. If the density of abrasive particles on the paper is large enough, these wood patches grow together, making the emery paper unt. To avoid this failure in machines, usually the density of abrasive particles is chosen rather small and the ground body of emery paper rather elastic. These modications make the wood pattern unstable, when they

Fig. 2. Patch structure on friction surface of a brake pad.

reach a characteristic size. The emery paper is self cleaning then. Nearly the same process creates the patches on brake pad surfaces. The functional structure of a brake pad is given by two components. One is a rather soft polymer matrix, the other components are embedded small and hard particles, f.i. SiO2 particles. All the other components of a pad seems only to modulate the process described below. When the brake works, the contact between metallic disk and soft polymer matrix produce wear particles as rubber on paper does. These wear particles move rather homogeneously through the contact zone. Partially they adhere to the disk surface, coming into the contact zone again some time later from the other side. Figs. 36 show a small part of the contact pad, containing only one SiO2 particle for simplicity. When an embedded SiO2 particle reaches the surface by wear of the pad matrix, the wear particle ow will be disturbed at this location. The SiO2 particle is more and more pressed down in the soft matrix, because the polymer matrix around this hard particle will be lowered by wear, but this particle itself shows nearly no wear. The tangential and normal pressure between the SiO2 particle and the disc will grow, resulting in growing heat at this SiO2 particle up to that point, where mechanical alloy ore even melting processes of the wear particles is possible, see Fig. 4. Further the load on the SiO2 particle causes wear of the brake disc, so now wear debris from the pad matrix and also from the metallic disk are to be found in the wear material owing through the contact zone. This results in the growth of a thin patch along one side of the SiO2 particle, see Fig. 5. This patch is rather hard, as measurements show. So this patch shows nearly the same wear properties as the SiO2 particle does with respect to wear. The patch is pressed against the matrix. The friction power grows up on this patch area. The wear around the patches, heat, stress and load history results in destabilization of this patch. When they are small, they will fall out. Otherwise, e.g. growth of cracks in the patches will take place. Also the asperity structure of the disk surface force the end of lifetime of a patch by local movements of these hard contact zones on the soft polymer matrix.

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Fig. 4. (ac) The normal load in the contact area, when hard particles are growing out of the surface by wear of the polymer matrix.

So the hard patches are destroyed after some time, see Fig. 6. Parts of them ow out the contact zone together with other wear particles or they are integrated directly in other patches or they initiate the growth of an other patch at an other place. The other components in real brake pads as well as the rather small quantities of wear material of the disk seems only to modulate the dynamics and chemistry of this friction layer. Experiments have shown, that the wear particle ow coming into the contact zone of the pad is essential. Cleaning the disk surface before running into the pad contact by pressing a towel against the rotating disc results in reduction of the friction coefcient up to about 50%. This and other experiments will be reported elsewhere. The effective temperatures on the patches results in an integral contact temperature of the pad up to 300 C. We do not know yet the absolute temperatures on the patches in the friction process. When ceramizing processes are enabled in patch growing, these local temperatures must be over 1200 C. In our research group we currently develop chemical sensors to get information on the shape dynamics of these patches. A complex simulation of the dynamics of these surface structures within the context of the mesoscopic particle

method [4,5] using thermo-dynamical (heat) and material transformation properties of the particles (polymer to patch material) shows an interesting behaviour of this wear mechanism in the brake system. When the friction power density on a pad is not quite homogenous, the technical brake system seems to loose some of the performance. When the growing rate of the patches is too large, the patches aggregates to few but very large layers, which grinds the metallic disc. The pad than has a behaviour as a grinding stone. When the growing rate is too small, the main energy dissipation channel of the system, that is the transformation of input power on the patches, is small and in addition the wear of the brake pad grows. This will be shown elsewhere. So the friction layer on brake pads is characterized by grow and destruction of hard contact patches. These patches cause the main part of transformation of input power to friction power in the system. The energetic balance in the friction layer of brake pads is sketched out in more details in Fig. 7, see [6]. The sliding resistance is essentially determined by the contact patches. The size of these contact patches depend on heat and wear. Wear causes a particle ow, which increases the size of contact patches when there is enough heat and pressure. The heat modulates the wear and the wear process

Fig. 5. (ac) Grow of contact patches.

Fig. 6. (ac) Destruction process of the contact patch.

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With respect to Coulombs ideas the dynamic friction coefcient is described by the friction force R divided by the normal force N, = R N (1)

Expanding this fraction by the scalar tangential velocity v between the two contacting bodies, where these forces are acting, = Rv , Nv Nv = ||N||||v|| (2)

gives another interpretation of the friction coefcient . It is now a dimensionless measure of the total friction power in units of a characteristic system power, given by the product of the magnitudes of the vectors of normal force and tangential velocity. So the equilibrium of ow of friction power must be given by an equation of balance for ,
Fig. 7. Energetic analysis of wear, see [4].

= f1 f2

(3)

itself modulates the destruction of contact patches. Heat and wear are essentially determined by the sliding resistance again. So Fig. 7 shows a closed loop dependence of wear and friction. The main property of the total contact area of patches on the pad is an equilibrium of ow with respect to grow and reduction. This equilibrium of ow is a fundamental consequence of the closed loop interaction of friction and wear.

3. An energetic model of friction in brace systems Usually models describing the friction coefcient deals with the integration of asperityasperity interactions assuming wear to be negligible small for describing a short time interval of friction. Here we have to take into account wear even for very short time intervals, because the wear history determines the actual state of the contact patches. Formulating a mathematical model we rst summarize all the effects described above. The wear particles are generated on the macroscopic visible contact area A of the brake system. The sum of areas of the contact patches Ap is a measure of friction power. The sum of areas of the contact patches Ap is rather independent from the actual value of normal force. The dynamic behaviour of the friction coefcient is characterized by the equilibrium of ow of birth and death of the contact patches. The friction power is correlated with the number and size of contact patches on the pad. Let us assume for simplicity the friction power is proportional to the total area of contact patches. In this rst analysis the energy ows in all other contact regions will be neglected.

where the dot indicates the derivation with respect to time. The function f1 denotes growing effects and f2 destroying effects of the patches and therefore of friction power. As mentioned above, the friction coefcient is a function of the actual sum of contact patch areas. Let us assume Ap /A. For simplicity and to get analytical equations, let us assume the destroying effects are described by the friction power itself. To get dimensionless terms, a reference power is dened by the product pref = (Nv)ref of a characteristic magnitude of the normal load and a characteristic magnitude of the velocity in the technical system. In addition let us assume, the destroying effects are larger, when the area of contact patches is large. This assumption is not necessary for the following but rather obvious: When the area Ap is large, statistically each patch area must be rather large, because the density of patches is a characteristic constant of the brace pad material. When the patches are large, the kinematic motion, the patches has to be done by the tangential motion of the disc with it is asperity structure, will force the lowering effect. f2 = a Ap Rv +a A pref (4)

Expanding the rst term by Nv, a Rv Nv = anv(t) Nv (Nv)ref (5)

and remembering Ap /A the function f2 gets the very nice form, f2 = a( + nv(t)), = a a (6)

where nv = nv(t) is a dimensionless parameter, describing the actual magnitude of normal load and actual magnitude

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Teff = c(Teff T0 ) + d

Rv + Ap

(9)

Because the heat is not produced homogeneously on the pad surface, but only on the patch areas, the generating term in (9) has to be concentrated on this part of surface, which is proportional to the friction coefcient itself. With the transformation,
Fig. 8. Stationary values of the friction model (10) for brake systems.

b Teff a

of tangential velocity in the frictional system in units of the reference power. As mentioned above, the mean effective temperature Teff on the patches is assumed to be the generating variable to describe the growing behaviour of these contact patches. f1 = Teff (7)

and neclecting all non linearities as radiation terms in (9), etc. and taking all together a model describing the friction coefcient as equilibrium of ow of growing and destroying contact patches is, = a((nv(t) + ) ), = c( 0 nv(t)) (10)

The heat production is correlated with the friction power. Which part of friction power is transformed into heat is still unknown. But as usually done in literature it will be assumed, that it is a constant part of friction power. The heat H is proportional to the temperature, H = cv mT (8)

Eq. (10) describe a linear dynamic model of second order for the friction coefcient with a usually time variant coefcient nv(t). When this equation is used within a dynamic system, this coefcient nv is given by the product of the actual values of magnitudes of normal load and tangential velocity of the brake system. Then Eq. (10) are highly non linear. Assuming

where m denotes the mass and cv the specic heat coefcient.

Fig. 9. The friction coefcient and temperature for given values of the input nv(t) over time.

Fig. 10. The friction coefcient getting unstable and temperature for given values of the input nv(t) over time.

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Fig. 11. (a) The friction coefcient and temperature for given values of the velocity v(t) over time, (b) the same friction coefcient shown over velocity.

nv(t) to be constant, the stationary solutions are simply given by, 0 + nv = (11a) + nv = 0 + nv (11b)

The temperature is a linear function of velocity and normal load and the friction coefcient has a falling characteristic with respect to velocity and normal load too. This is a specic situation in brace systems, where the normal load is not (linear) correlated with the so called true contact area as known f.i. in metallic contacts. And this is in fact the reason of the fading effect.

Fig. 10 shows a special case of unstable time periodic solutions indicating a burn process of the surface of the brake pad. Of cource such phenomena are not contained in the simple model above without any material specic parameters. Fig. 11 shows the friction coefcient for varying velocities with respect to time. The same friction coefcient plotted versus the velocity shows characteristic hysteretic effects, which are known from nearly every measurement in tribology, not only in brake systems. Usually this behaviour is explained by the hard- and software of the measurement equipment. The theory in this paper shows, that these measurement effects seems to be a characteristic dynamic behaviour of the friction coefcient.

4. Dynamic friction effects in brake systems 5. Conclusions The dynamic simulation of model (10) shows the effect of fading. Eq. (10) also describe those dynamic variations of known by measurements when suddenly changes of the input parameters N and v occour, see Figs. 8 and 9. Further time periodic solutions of the friction coefcient in the short time range of about 20 Hz are to be found. In this paper a simple model for dynamic friction phenomena is presented. Only a linear model is taken into account just to demonstrate the principal behaviour [9]. The theory given here uses the fact, that the actual value of the friction coefcient is given by the actual state of patches on the pad. A rst verication for this is given in [8]. The main

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aspect formulating frictional laws seems to be the search for non stationary description of the friction coefcient. May be, many interesting effects in measurement and theory of tribology seems to be the effect of a dynamic coupling of a few rather simple dissipation effects. For such a dynamic investigation the coupling of friction and wear seems to be essential. One aim of advanced brake systems is to avoid or minimize the fading effect. New materials like ceramics and carbon material build up surface structures, where the dissipation intensive patches are not rather independent from the normal load. So the fading effect should be small or even not existing. See the paper of Prendle in this issue and f.i. [7]. A rigorous analysis of the dynamic behaviour of brake pads has to take into account distributed patches on the contact surface of the brake pad. The resulting equations are partial differential equations. This and the generalisation of these ideas to other tribological contacts, especially for metallic contacts, where the dependence of the normal load on the true contact area vanishes, will be shown elsewhere.

References
[1] M. Eriksson, F. Bergman, S. Jacobson, On the nature of tribological contact in automotive brakes, Wear 234 (1999) 163167. [2] M. Eriksson, S. Jacobson, Tribological surfaces of organic brake pads, Tribol. Int. 33 (2000) 817827. [3] D. Severin, F. Musiol, Der Reibprozess in trocken laufenden mechanischen Bremsen und Kupplungen, Konstruktion 47 (1995) 5968. [4] G.P. Ostermeyer, A mesoscopic particle method for description of thermomechanical and friction processes, Phys. Mesomech. 2 (6) (1999) 3339. [5] G.P. Ostermeyer, Friction models with discrete layers, ZAMM 80 (2000) 6164. [6] G.P. Ostermeyer, Friction and wear of brake systems, Forschung im Ingenieurwesen 66 (2001) 267272. [7] Ph. Stempe, G. Castelein, M. Brendle, Inuence of environment on the size of the elemental wear debris of graphite, in: Proceedings of the 28th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology, 2001. [8] D. Bettge, J. Starcevic, G.P. Ostermeyer, Quantitative topographic analysis of the wear process in disc brakes, in: Proceedings of the Second World Tribology Congress, Wien, 2001. [9] G.P. Ostermeyer, Friction and wear of brake systems, in: Proceedings of the Second World Tribology Congress, Wien, 2001.