Tenneco’s Ferodo original equipment (OE) braking business is expanding its low- and zero-copper brake pad products to heavy-duty tracks and trailers. Following the OE technical release for commercial vehicle applications in 2022, Ferodo copper-free OE commercial brake pads were introduced in series production for truck applications in the North American market. Further projects are underway globally.
Tenneco said it first brought low- and zero copper brake pads to the light vehicle market in 2012 and is looking forward to expanding its reach of its technology.
“We were able to use our light vehicle experience by following a similar development process, but the actual material formulations are quite different for heavy-duty applications,” explained Holger Schaus, vice president global engineering, OE braking at Tenneco. “In the light-duty area, concerns include comfort and convenience factors such as brake noise. With heavy commercial vehicles, safety, friction value stability and corrosion issues predominate due to the vast variety of applications from vocational to long haul, so disc cracking resistance is an important parameter here.”
Ferodo said its brake pad formulations are designed to meet current and forthcoming environmental legislation without compromising pad performance. The company said Ferodo’s zero-copper formulations were developed using a tribological fingerprinting process to identify alternative materials that can provide the same stopping performance, noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) characteristics and durability performance as traditional copper brake pads. Ferodo´s copper-free friction formulations are also compatible with electronic parking brakes, lighter brake calipers and electric vehicle (EV) braking systems, the company said.
Over the last couple of years, legislation in the U.S. and other countries around the globe has restricted copper use. Ferodo saif it will continue with its development efforts to further reduce copper content in brake pad material formulations to enable compliance with even stricter future environmental legislation.
