Copper free sintered brake pad materials for motor cycles

Sintered brake pads are used for heavy duty brake applications e.g. for railway, heavy vehicles and high-end motor cycles because of their better performance concerning temperature stability, fading and coefficient of friction compared to organic material. The mostly used matrix material is copper which ensures good tribological and sintering properties in combination with further alloy elements, solid lubricants and further additives. Presently material developments focus on replacing copper by iron to meet the U.S. regulations which require a maximum Cu content of 0.5 percentage in 2025 because copper is considered as highly toxic to aquatic species. In this paper new iron based friction materials for motor cycle brake pads are investigated with respect to the tribological behavior and microstructure. A major challenge is to obtain a comparable friction level, friction stability and corrosion level as well as processing properties to that of the state of the art copper based material