Electrical Contact Behavior of Several Typical Materials in Dust at Static and Dynamic Conditions

Dust particles can cause serious failure of electrical contacts. Designing and building a proper test system to simulate exposure to dust particles is an urgent need. To choose the appropriate materials to act as artificial dust particles is one of the major processes. Based on the previous analysis of dust collected indoors from west of Beijing and contaminated particles on the failed contacts of connectors, we identified several materials commonly found in fine dust particles (less than 50μm) that could be harmful. These materials include quartz, calcite, mica, gypsum, fibers, and sodium lactate. We studied these materials under both static and dynamic conditions. The failure mechanisms of contacts related to these particles were investigated.