Asbestos has been used as a reinforcing material for brake pads

Asbestos has been used as a reinforcing material for brake pads since its inception. Due to its high strength and high temperature resistance, asbestos fibers meet the requirements of brake pads and clutch discs and gaskets. This fiber has a strong tensile strength and can even be matched with high-grade steel and can withstand temperatures up to 316 °C. More importantly, asbestos is relatively inexpensive. It is extracted from amphibole ore, which has been found in many countries.

Asbestos accounts for 40-60% of the proportion of asbestos-type brake pads, but people now find that most asbestos has potential hazards. Asbestos has been confirmed by the medical community to be a carcinogen, and its needle-like fibers are easy to enter the lungs. Staying, causing irritation, can eventually lead to lung cancer, but the incubation period of this disease can be as long as 15-30 years, so people often do not recognize the damage caused by asbestos.

As long as the asbestos fiber is fixed by the friction material itself, it will not cause harm to the health of the staff. However, when the asbestos fiber is discharged with brake friction and brake dust, it may become a series of health-related sources.

According to tests conducted by the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA), every time a routine friction test is performed, the brake pads generate millions of asbestos fibers that are emitted into the air, and the fibers are much smaller than humans. The hair is invisible to the naked eye, so one breath can attract thousands of asbestos fibers and people are unaware. Similarly, if you use an air tube to blow away the brake dust from the brake drum or brake components, you can also blow countless asbestos fibers into the air, which will not only affect the health of the work technician, but also any Other people present were causing health damage. Even some extremely simple operations such as hammering the brake drum with a hammer to make it loose, allowing the internal brake dust to come out, can also produce a large amount of asbestos fibers floating into the air. What's even more worrying is that once the fibers float in the air for hours, they will stick to the surface of the object, on the table, on the tool, and so on. Any time you encounter agitation (such as cleaning, walking, and air flow when using pneumatic tools), they will all float back into the air.

Often, once the material enters the work environment, it will stay there for months or even years, potentially having a potential health impact on the people working there and even the customer.