Squeal propensity characterization of brake lining materials through friction noise measurements

Disc brake systems are a technology widely adopted within the automotive and rail industry, especially when high performance is needed. The interaction between the disc and the pads is responsible for friction-induced vibrations, leading often to squeal noise emission. Squeal vibrations are generated by the onset of an unstable mode, which is triggered by an external excitation. Local phenomena occurring at the contact interface, and resulting in friction noise, can be responsible of the dynamic excitation triggering the squeal instability. This work proposes a new approach for characterizing friction lining materials, by measuring the friction noise coming from the contact between different pad materials and a disc rotor, in order to quantify and compare the attitude of materials to trigger squeal. Then, a parametrical analysis has been carried out with the aim of highlighting the influence of the main parameters on the friction noise. When testing the same set of materials on a full brake disc system, the measured friction noise indexes resulted to be strongly correlated with the squeal occurrence, validating the proposed characterization method for the squeal propensity of lining materials.