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New contact material for reduction of arc duration for dc application

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

L. Doublet ,
N. Ben Jemaa ,
S. Rivoirard ,
C. Bourda ,
E. Carvou ,
D. Sallais ,
D. Givord  and
P. Ramoni
L. Doublet*
Affiliation:
Metalor Technologies (France) SAS, Electrotechnics Division, BP 29, 28190 Courville-sur-Eure, France
N. Ben Jemaa
Affiliation:
University of Rennes 1, IPR, 35042 Rennes, France
S. Rivoirard
Affiliation:
CRETA, CNRS, 25 avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
C. Bourda
Affiliation:
Metalor Technologies (France) SAS, Electrotechnics Division, BP 29, 28190 Courville-sur-Eure, France
E. Carvou
Affiliation:
University of Rennes 1, IPR, 35042 Rennes, France
D. Sallais
Affiliation:
University of Rennes 1, IPR, 35042 Rennes, France
D. Givord
Affiliation:
Institut Néel/CNRS-UJF, 25 avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
P. Ramoni
Affiliation:
Metalor Technologies SA, Technology Products Department, 2009 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
*
Laurent.doublet@metalor.com
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Abstract

The phenomenon of arcing is the major cause of electrical contact degradation in electrical switches. Degradation involves contact erosion and/or welding. The use of special contact material and that of specific material processing may permit contact erosion to be reduced, in particular by shortening the arc duration. A short review of these approaches is presented in the first part of this paper. In the second part, the development of a new self-blowing contact material is described. This material has been tested under dc voltages from 14 V to 42 V. A reduction of the arc duration by a factor of 4 approximately was obtained as was a concomitant reduction of the extinction gap to less than 2 mm. This material will contribute to achieving better reliability in high current-high voltages breaking devices, and will aid in their miniaturization, e.g. in relays.

Type
Research Article
Information
The European Physical Journal - Applied Physics , Volume 50 , Issue 1: Focus on Electrical Contacts , April 2010 , 12901
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, 2010

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References

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