Influence of Water, Oil and Dust on the Performance of Conventional and Wedge Disc Brakes

In this work, laboratory tests have been carried out to investigate the influence of the presence of water and oil film, as well as the existence of wet dust between the disc and brake pads on the performance characteristics of conventional and wedge disc brakes are examined. The number of brake application and its influence on friction at dry and wet conditions are also investigated. The results indicated that the presence of a water layer between brake pads and disc led to increased friction coefficient and therefore increased the brake shoe factor. The presence of oil film between the friction surfaces lead to obvious reduction in the coefficient of friction. The influence of the presence of wet dust between the friction surfaces has a negligible influence on both conventional and wedge disc brakes.