Study on the thermal decay mechanism of basalt fiber reinforced resin based friction materials

Purpose Resin-based friction materials are the most widely used key materials in industry for braking and transmission. However, the friction coefficient of resin-based friction materials significantly decreases at temperatures above 300°C, which reduces their friction performance. Design/methodology/approach This study combines elevated-temperature mechanical experiments with friction and wear experiments to explain the thermal degradation resistance performance and temperature recovery performance of resin-based friction materials. It also investigates the influence of friction material strength and worn morphology on the friction coefficient of materials at elevated temperature. Findings The experimental results show that the increase in friction coefficient of friction materials below 300°C is mainly due to the increase in worn morphology characterization parameters, and the thermal degradation phenomenon above 300°C is mainly due to the decrease of shear strength of friction film. Basalt fiber can significantly improve the thermal degradation resistance of friction materials. The friction coefficient of basalt fiber-reinforced specimens after thermal degradation reaches 0.421–0.443, which is 19–25% higher than the original. The thermal decay rate is 9.03–11.0%, which is 7.9–9.87% lower than the original. Moreover, the friction coefficient has good cooling recovery performance. Originality/value Revealed the thermal degradation mechanism of resin-based friction materials, verified that basalt fibers can improve the thermal degradation resistance of friction materials and provided reference for the development of new friction materials.