THE INFLUENCE OF COMPRESSION MOLDING DURATION ON THE PROPERTIES OF COMPOSITE BRAKE SHOES FOR RAILWAY APPLICATION

Railway brake shoes from composite materials are currently being developed and researched. Previous investigations have demonstrated the successful fabrication of brake shoes utilizing the hand lay-up method. However, it was observed that the resulting density did not meet the specified range of 1.7 to 2.4 g/cm³ defined by INKA (Indonesian Railway Company) Ltd. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of compression molding duration on the characteristics of composite brake shoe. The composite manufacturing process was carried out using the compression cold molding method with a variation of pressing time for 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and 30 minutes and a pressing load of 20 MPa. The findings indicated that prolonging the duration of compression molding led to enhanced mechanical and physical properties of the brake shoe specimens. Utilizing a compression molding duration of 30 minutes provided the best possible outcomes in terms of density, hardness, flexural strength, thermal resistance, and coefficient of friction, which are 1.89 g/cm³, 80.20 Shore D Hardness, 34.15 MPa , 503.67^o C, and 0.38, respectively. The research findings demonstrate that the composite brake shoes manufactured have effectively fulfilled the physical, mechanical, and thermal criteria established by INKA Ltd. Unfortunately, the railway brake shoe sample failed to meet the specified coefficient of friction requirements as the resulting coefficient of friction exceeded 0.27.