The role of the constituents within friction materials for brake lining still largely unknown due to the complexity of these organic composite formulations and to the induced solicitation by braking which generates multiple physical phenomena. Therefore, it is especially difficult to establish the relationship between the composition of a brake lining and its performance. The work has concerned an industrial brake lining for heavy vehicle. A preliminary study was conducted in terms of its microstructure, constituents, properties, elaboration and its braking performance. The experimental approach was based, on the one hand, on the development of a “model” formulation, derived from the simplification of the industrial one and, on the other hand, on a specific wear test representative of braking solicitations, to take up the tribological behaviour of constituents in the framework of a simplified configuration. Brass particles and glass fibres have been particularly studied, introduced into the model formulation taken as a reference. The analysis of performance has focused on understanding the relationship between friction and wear mechanisms, microstructure and properties of materials, and their tribological behaviour
