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Copper has been regarded as one of the indispensable ingredients in the brake friction materials since it provides high thermal diffusivity at the sliding interface. However, the recent regulations against environmentally hazardous ingredients limit the use of copper in the commercial friction material and much effort has been made for the alternatives. In this work, the role of the cuprous ingredients such as copper fiber, copper powder, cupric oxide (CuO), and copper sulfide (CuS) are studied using the friction materials based on commercial formulations. The investigation was performed using a full inertial brake dynamometer and 1/5 scale dynamometer for brake performance and wear test. Results showed that the cuprous ingredients played a crucial role in maintaining the stable friction film at the friction interface, resulting in improved friction stability and reduced aggressiveness against counter disk.

Brake judder caused by corrosion of gray iron disks was investigated. In this study, the microstructure of the gray iron disks and the friction film developed on the disk surface by commercial friction materials were examined to find the root cause of the corrosion induced brake torque variation. Corrosion of the disk was carried out in an environmental chamber, simulating in-vehicle disk corrosion. Moisture content and acidity of the friction materials were also taken into account for this investigation and brake tests to examine torque variation during brake applications were performed using a single-end brake dynamometer. Results showed that the friction film developed on the disk surface strongly affected the amount of corrosion, while graphite morphology of the gray iron had little effect on the corrosion.

A new heat-resistant cast iron alloy has been developed for the exhaust manifolds of new passenger-car diesel engines. This development occurred because operating demands on exhaust manifolds have increased significantly over the past decade. These demands are due to higher exhaust gas temperatures resulting from tighter emission requirements, improved fuel efficiencies, and designs for higher specific engine power. These factors have led to much higher elevated temperature strength and oxidation resistance requirements on exhaust manifold alloys. Additionally, thermal fatigue that occurs directly as a result of thermal expansions and mechanical constraint has become an increasingly important issue. The research detailed in this paper focused on the optimization of the chemical composition of a Si-Mo ductile iron to improve the mechanical and physical properties for use in an engine exhaust manifold.

A comparative study was carried out to investigate the DTV (disk thickness variation) behavior according to the types of brake disks (gray iron grade 250 and high-carbon gray iron grade 200, 170) with two typical friction materials (non-steel and low-steel friction materials). To evaluate DTV generation and recovery characteristics, a parasitic drag mode simulating highway driving (off-brake) and a normal braking mode simulating city traffic driving (on-brake) were used with an inertia brake dynamometer. Results showed that DTV and BTV were strongly affected by the microstructure, hardness level and distribution of the gray cast iron with the friction material types. The BTV was reduced in the friction two pairs using non-steel friction materials with high carbon grade disks and low-steel friction materials with high-carbon, low hardness disk. In particular, the pair of low-steel friction materials and high-carbon, low-hardness brake disks was more effective on DTV recovery.