An Investigation Toward Development Of Economical Brake Lining Wear Alert System

Brakes and tires are the major contributors for catastrophic failure of ground vehicles. Braking system is the utmost important besides tire to ensure the safety of users and vehicle. Ensuring good condition of brake lining is very crucial to ensure the efficiency of the braking system, where, the worn off brake lining not only endangers life but also damages the entire brake associated parts such as hub, disk, shaft, etc. In this paper, Malaysian made luxury car Proton Perdana V6 brake pads were investigated to be embedded with a lining wear limit alert system. The current spring steel alert system has some drawbacks where, the alerting sound is only activated while the car moves and secondly, when the car is on move , rarely the alerting sound reaches the driver. Therefore, a critical investigation of the existing pads manufactured in Malaysia and their characterizations are conducted to identify the most suitable sensor spot on the brake pad. Later, a micro sensor is embedded into the pad and fully tested on a specially designed test rig. The evaluation of thickness, hardness, layer properties and critical wear region has enabled the spotting of exact sensor location. The embedment of the micro switch was successfully done and tested to be very efficient in alerting the driver upon reaching the maximum lining wear limit. Index Term— Brake lining monitoring system, Micro switch, micro sensing, brake pad evaluation.