2003-01-3313
The effect of the composition and microstructure of gray cast
iron on preferential wear during parasitic drag and on intrinsic
damping capacity
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University
R&D Division for Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation
Copyright © 2003 SAE International
ABSTRACT
Propensity of cold judder was studied by investigating the
correlation between the microstructure of gray iron brake
disks and friction properties of commercial brake linings.
Based on a brake disk for a mid-size passenger car, gray
iron disks with 6 different microstructures were manu-
factured by changing the carbon equivalent (C.E.) and
cooling speed in a commercial manufacturing facility.
Graphite morphology of the gray iron changed propor-
tionally according to the C.E. and cooling speeds,
exhibiting longer graphite flakes with high C.E. at slow
cooling speeds. After screening tests of 23 commercial
brake linings, 4 different brake linings (two non-steel and
two low-steel linings with high µ and low µ) were selected
for parasitic drag tests. Results showed that the prefer-
ential disk wear was pronounced in the case of using low
steel linings and the trend was marked with the disks
containing short graphite flakes. Examination of the disks
after the drag tests revealed that the initial DTV (disk
thickness variation) pattern was preserved during the
wear tests while the intensity of the DTV pattern was
increased. Sonic resonance tests were also performed to
investigate the effect of gray iron microstructures on
vibration damping capacity. Results showed that the gra-
phite morphology strongly affected the vibration damping
capacity.
INTRODUCTION
Gray iron has been used for brake disks since the early
stage of brake system development. This is because the
gray iron has good wear resistance with high thermal
conductivity and the production cost is low compared to
other possible candidates for brake disks such as Al-MMC,
carbon composites, and ceramic based composites [1-5].
Ho Jang, Jang Hyuk Yoon, Seong Jin Kim
Jae Young Lee, Hyun Dahl Park
Gray iron brake disks, however, have attracted much
attention since they were considered as a possible cause
of brake judder due to uneven disk wear and thermal
distortion. Brake judder occurs when disk wear results in
disk thickness variation (DTV) in a circumferential direc-
tion and generates friction force oscillation during brake
applications. Thermal distortion of a disk also pro-duces
DTV from uneven wear due to non-uniform contact
pressure on the disk surface during sliding. Many efforts
have been made to prevent the DTV increase during
service by controlling a microstructure of gray iron,
designing a thermally stable disk geometry to avoid
warping at elevated temperatures, and by relieving
residual stress developed during manufacturing [6-9].
However, the lack of information on the physicochemical
process at the sliding interface makes detailed under-
standing of uneven wear mechanism difficult.
While the type of wear mechanism is normally classified
as abrasive wear, adhesive wear, corrosive wear, or
surface fatigue wear, the wear mechanism at the braking
interface is so complicated that it is not possible to
approach with one type of wear mechanism. This is main-
ly because the brake lining is a multi-component com-
posite containing disparate ingredients such as polymers,
metals, and ceramics. In addition to the complicated
material system of brake linings, the microstructure of
gray iron, which consists of graphite flakes in the pearlite
matrix, makes the fundamental understanding of wear
mechanism more difficult.
Wear of gray iron disks is dependent on the
microstructure of gray iron and the tribological properties
of the brake linings. It is known that the type of the
graphite morphology determines the thermal conductivity
of gray iron and they are directly related with carbon
equivalent and cooling speed from melt during casting
[10,11]. In a previous publication, Cho et al. [12] reported
that the gray iron structure affected the coefficient of
friction and the effect was pronounced in the case of using
brake linings containing steel fibers. However, the influ-
ence of the gray iron microstructure and the ingredients of
brake lining on preferential wear of a disk have not been
reported.
In this work, we investigated the propensity of DTV
increase from the 6 different gray iron disks having
different microstructures. The disks were manufactured
by changing composition and cooling speed during
casting. From 23 commercial brake linings, 4 brake lining
specimens were selected concerning the coefficient of
friction and the type of a lining. Sliding tests simulating
parasitic drag were carried out using the 6 different gray
iron disks and 4 brake linings to examine the effect of the
graphite morphology of gray iron disks and lining type on
the preferential wear of gray iron disks.
EXPERIMENTS
Gray iron disks
Gray iron brake disks were fabricated using a commercial
manufacturing facility. The brake disk was ventilated type
and was designed for a front brake system of a mid-size
passenger car. The microstructure of the gray iron was
controlled by changing carbon equivalent (C.E.) and
cooling speed of melt during casting. The cooling speed
was controlled by changing the thickness of the cast and
the final microstructure of the disks showed different
graphite morphology. Table 1 shows the C.E. and thick-
ness of the casts used in this experiment. The final thick-
ness of the outboard plate is 9 mm.
Table 1. The amount of C.E. and cast thickness (in mm) of
the outboard side plate used in this experiment
Thickness C.E. = 4.6 C.E. = 4.3 C.E. = 4.0
15 mm A B C
11 mm D E F
Brake linings
Commercial brake linings were used for the parasitic wear
test. Total 23 brake linings were employed (13 non-steel
linings and 10 low-steel linings) for the screening
procedure. In this work, the coefficient of friction (COF)
and surface hardness were measured to select can-
didates since aggressive linings against brake disks
tended to have high COF values and surface hardness is
often issued for cold DTV generation. The COF was mea-
sured using a small scale friction tester [13]. The friction
tester uses two pieces of linings in the size of 2cm x 2cm,
pressed against rotating gray iron disk (φ =12 cm) using a
hydraulic pressure. The COF for each lining was meas-
ured at 100°C. Surface hardness of the brake linings was
measured using a Rockwell Hardness tester in S scale.
The hardness value was obtained by averaging the values
from 10 points from the surface.
Wear tests
A wear tester was used to simulate the parasitic drag.
Full size disk was used for the test and two rectangular
linings were used for the sliding and total area of apparent
contacts was 8 cm2. The DTV during the sliding test was
recorded in-situ using non-contacting distance probes
providing data to a PC-based data acquisition system (Fig.
1). The normal load was given by pneumatic pressure
and the pressure during the test was set at 7 kgf/cm2 (0.69
MPa). The test carried out for 48 hrs at 200 rpm (2.56
m/sec) for each set of a friction couple and repeated 3
times for reliability of the test results. During the test the
disk temperature was maintained below 100°C.
Fig. 1. Wear tester used in this work for parasitic prefer-
ential wear tests. Two non-contacting distance probes
were installed for in-situ measurement of DTV.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Gray iron microstructure
Fig. 2 shows the microstructure of the 6 gray iron disks.
Gray iron microstructures from different C.E. and cooling
speeds showed a systematic trend in the average graphite
length. The average graphite length was longer when the
gray iron contained high C.E. and solidified at slow cooling
speeds. Using an image analyzer the maximum graphite
length and the area fraction of the graphite in the cast iron
surface were also obtained (Fig. 3). The quantitative ana-
lysis of the graphite in the gray iron was carried out from
two different locations; a location near the gate, which was
an inlet for melt during casting practice, and an opposite
location from the gate. The figure shows that the content
of graphite is higher in the case of containing higher C.E.
and at slower cooling speeds. The figure also shows that
graphite morphology is slightly different according to the
location of a disk. However, the amounts of deviation acc-
ording to the location of a disk appear within the range of
measuring error.
 0.2 mm 0.2 mm 0.2 mm

(A) (B) (C)

0.2 mm 0.2 mm 0.2 mm

(D) (E) (F)

Fig. 2. Microstructures of gray iron disks obtained by changing carbon equivalent (C.E.) and cooling speed. See the
Table 1 for C.E., casting thickness, and specimen names; A through F.

Physical properties of commercial brake linings

55 20
Graphite length (gate) The COF and surface hardness of 23 commercial brake
Graphite length (far away) 18
50
Area fraction (gate)
linings were measured (Fig. 4). Fig. 4 shows that low-
Area fraction (far away) steel type linings tend to have higher COF and lower
Area fraction of graphite (%)

16
surface hardness and vise versa for non-steel linings. We
Max. graphite length (mm)

45
14 selected 4 different brake linings for disk wear tests (two
from non-steel and two from low-steel linings) that
40
12 represent the extreme cases considering the COF,
surface hardness, and lining types.
35 10

8
Preferential wear during parasitic drag
30

6 Sliding tests under the light pressure condition were

25 performed using the six different brake rotors and four
4 commercial brake linings. Fig. 5 shows the disk thickness
20 as a function of rotation angle measured before and after
2
the tests. The results suggest that the amount of DTV
15 0
change is strongly affected by the type of the brake lining
F) E) D) C) B) A) and cast iron microstructures. In the case of low-steel
T( T( T( T( T( T(
0 11 0 15 3 11 3 15 6 11 6 15 linings, DTV tended to increase and showed large DTV
4. 4 . 4. 4. 4 . 4 .
CE CE CE CE CE CE increment when the lining was slid against gray iron disks
exhibiting short graphite flakes. On the other hand, non-
Fig. 3. Maximum graphite length and area fraction mea- steel linings showed little DTV change regardless of the
sured from the 6 different gray iron disks (one location microstructure of gray iron disks. Fig. 6 shows the ten-
near gate and one location from opposite to gate). Each dency of DTV change with respect to the microstructure of
data point in the graph was obtained from the average of gray iron and the type of linings.
25 different regions.
 30
0.50
Low-steel linings USA 2
0.48 25

Disc thickness (µm)

Non-steel linings Asia 5
0.46 Europe 5 (No.1)
Friction coefficient

20
Europe 4
0.44 Europe 4

Europe 1 USA 3 USA 4

0.42 Europe 3 Europe 6 15
Europe 2 (No.2)
0.40 USA 1 Asia 6
10
Asia 1 Asia 7 Asia 8 (No.3)
0.38 Asia 4 USA 5
Asia 9 Initial DTV
5
0.36 Asia 10 Final DTV
Asia 2 (No.4) Asia 3
USA 6 0
0.34
0 180 360 540 720
0.32 Angular position (o )
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Rockwell hardness (S-scale) (b)

Fig. 4. The coefficient of friction and surface hardness of

the 23 commercial brake linings tested in this work. Open
30
square indicates low-steel linings and open circle
represents non-steel linings. Four different linings (solid 25

Disc thickness (µm)

symbols) were annotated as No.1 – No.4, which were
selected for preferential wear test. 20

The figure clearly indicates that the DTV change is 15

affected by the type of the linings and the graphite
appears beneficial to reduce DTV increase when low-steel 10

linings are used. This is a very interesting result since it

Initial DTV
shed light on the efforts to find a method to prevent DTV 5
Final DTV
increase from parasitic drag. In particular, the fact that
0
gray iron disks with high content of graphite flakes 0 180 360 540 720
reduced the DTV increase suggests that large amount of Angular position (o )
graphite in the disk can reduce the DTV. The disk surf-
aces were examined using an optical microscope (Fig. 7). (c)
The rubbed gray iron surface with low-steel linings was
shiny due to exposed metallic matrix suggesting
significant surface wear. On the other hand, the disk surf-
ace rubbed with non-steel linings showed remaining 30

machining marks that were produced during fabrication.

In this case, disk surface was covered with friction films 25
Disc thickness (µm)

that were transferred from the linings. The amount of disk

20
wear was also measured after extended tests using a low-
steel lining (Fig. 8). Fig. 8 clearly suggests that the wear
15
amount is directly related to the graphite morphology
which can be controlled by the C.E. and cooling speed. 10

30
Initial DTV
5
Final DTV
25
Disc thickness (µm)

0
0 180 360 540 720
20
Angular position (o )
15 (d)

10

Initial DTV Fig. 5. Disk thickness as a function of rotation angle of a

5
Final DTV disk, measured before and after parasitic drag tests. (a)
0
and (b) were results tested on disks F and A with low-steel
0 180 360 540 720 lining No.1, respectively, and (c), (d) were results tested
Angular position (o) on disks F and A with low-steel lining No. 2. (continues on
(a) the next page for non-steel linings).
 Fig. 5. (Continue) Disk thickness as a function of rotation
30 angle of a disk, measured before and after parasitic drag
tests. (e) and (f) were results tested on disks F and A with
25
a lining No.3 (non-steel type) and (g), (h) were results
Disc thickness (µm)

tested on a disks F and A with a lining No. 4 (low-steel

20
type).
15

10 14

Disk thickness variation (µm)

12
Graphite length (gate)
Initial DTV Graphite length (far away)
5
Final DTV 10 Area fraction (gate)
8 Area fraction (far away)
0
0 180 360 540 720
6
Angular position (o ) 4

(e) 2
30 0

40 20
25
Disc thickness (µm)

Area fraction of graphite (%)

35

Max graphite length (mm)

20 18

30
15
16

10 25

14
Initial DTV 20
5
Final DTV

12
0 15
0 180 360 540 720
Angular position (o )
10 10
(f) CE4.0 CE4.0 CE4.3 CE4.3 CE4.6 CE4.6
30
11T 15T 11T 15T 11T 15T

(a) Tested with low steel lining No.1

25
Disc thickness (µm)

20
14
Disk thickness variation (µm)

15 12
Graphite length (gate)
Graphite length (far away)
10 Area fraction (gate)
10
8 Area fraction (far away)

Initial DTV 6
5
Final DTV
4

0 2
0 180 360 540 720
o 0
Angular position ()
40 20
(g) Area fraction of graphite (%)
30 35 18
Max graphite length (mm)

25
Disc thickness (µm)

30 16

20
25 14

15
20 12

10
15 10
Initial DTV
5
Final DTV
10 8

0 CE4.0 CE4.0 CE4.3 CE4.3 CE4.6 CE4.6

0 180 360 540 720 11T 15T 11T 15T 11T 15T
Angular position (o )
(b) Tested with low steel lining No.2
(h)
 14
Disk thickness variation (µm)

12
Graphite length (gate)
Graphite length (far away)
10 Area fraction (gate)
8 Area fraction (far away)

40 20
0.2 mm

Area fraction of graphite (%)

35 (a)
Max graphite length (mm)

18

30
16

25

14
20

12
15

10 10
CE4.0 CE4.0 CE4.3 CE4.3 CE4.6 CE4.6
11T 15T 11T 15T 11T 15T
0.2 mm
(c) Tested with non-steel linings No.1
(b)

14
Disk thickness variation (µm)

12
Graphite length (gate)
Graphite length (far away)
10 Area fraction (gate)
8 Area fraction (far away)

0
0.2 mm
40 20

(c)
Area fraction of graphite (%)

35
Max graphite length (mm)

18

30
16

25

14
20

12
15

10 10
CE4.0 CE4.0 CE4.3 CE4.3 CE4.6 CE4.6
11T 15T 11T 15T 11T 15T 0.2 mm

(d) Tested with non-steel lining No.2 (d)

Fig. 6. Tendency of DTV change with respect to the

microstructure of gray iron and lining type. The figure Fig. 7. Rubbing surfaces of the gray iron disks A. (a) lining
clearly indicates that the DTV change is affected by the No.1 (low-steel), (b) lining No.2 (low-steel), (c) lining No.3
gray iron microstructure and lining type. (non-steel), (d) lining No.4 (non-steel).
 1.0 0.005

Q-1 (Inverse quality factor)

0.8
0.004
Amount of wear(g)

0.003
0.6

0.002
0.4

0.001

0.2

0
T T T T T T
11 15 11 15 11 15
4.0 4.0 4.3 4.3 4.6 4.6
4.0 11T 4.3 11T 4.5 15T CE CE CE CE CE CE
Sample
Fig. 9. Internal friction of the six gray irons.
Fig. 8. Amounts of disk wear after extended wear tests
using low-steel lining No.1.

Vibration damping of gray iron ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Vibration damping capacity was measured from the gray
iron disks with different graphite morphology using a sonic
resonance tester since the length of graphite flakes affects
the vibration damping, which is important in brake perfor-
mance [14]. Damping capacity was measured at room
temperature and calculated from the internal friction: Q-1.
This works was funded by Hyundai Motor Company.
Authors thank for the technical supports from Sungwoo
Automotive Co. Ltd. and Korea Flange Co. Ltd. Authors
also thank Prof. Youngman Kim of Chonnam National
University for the measurement of damping capacity.

I 
ln 1 
Q −1 =  2 
I
πN
where I1 and I2 are amplitudes of vibration intensity after N
oscillations [15]. Fig. 9 shows the internal friction values
measured from the six gray iron disks. The figure strongly
suggests that the longer graphite flake is effective to
diminish the vibration. This suggests that the gray iron
disks with longer graphite flakes can absorbed physical
excitation at the friction surface during brake applications.
CONCLUSION
Parasitic drag tests were performed to investigate the
effect of gray iron microstructure and type of brake linings
on the preferential wear (DTV generation) of brake disks.
The results show that low-steel linings tended to increase
DTV and not much DTV change was observed when non-
steel linings were used. Another salient feature of the test
result is that the DTV increase from the low-steel linings
can be avoided by using a gray iron disks containing high
graphite contents, although disk wear is significant.
Damping test results suggest that the gray irons with
longer graphite flakes are more effective to diminish the
vibrations.
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CONTACT: Prof. Ho Jang, Korea University, e-mail:
hojang@korea.ac.kr.