Md. Ashraful Islam, Md. Mizanur Rahman, Abu Bakkar
The pursuit of sustainable automobile solutions has led to development of eco-friendly brake pads using a hybrid composite of coconut shell, rice husk, steel fiber, Al powder, brass powder, Si and epoxy resin. Three samples of brake pad were tested across seven performance parameters, including frictional coefficient, density, water absorption, porosity, flexural strength, compressive strength and mechanical stability. Sample 01 exhibited a static friction coefficient 0f 0.42 at a slide angle of 23.26 , while sample 2 showed 0.42 at 22.95 , both outperforming (0.39 at 21.30 ). Density measurement ranged from 2.02-2.30 g/ , with minimal variation across samples. Water absorption and apparent porosity were within 6.55-7.81% and 14.36-22.24 respectively, indicating controlled fluid uptake. Flexural and compressive strengths for the top performing samples reached 39 MPa and 207.25MPa respectively, demonstrating reliability comparable to conventional brake pads. But the dynamic friction test was unable to be perform because of unavailability of experimental equipment. Overall sample 1 and 2 consistently achieved superior performance, suggesting optimized material composition. These findings quantitatively validate that eco-friendly brake pads can meet industry standards while reducing environmental impact, highlighting their potential for sustainable automobile applications. Further optimization and test are recommended to enhance performance consistency for commercial-scale production.