An experimental investigation of contact bounce in medium duty contacts

Author

McBride, John W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Mech., Southampton Univ., UK

fYear

1990

fDate

20-24 Aug 1990

Firstpage

8

Lastpage

17

Abstract

An investigation of parameters influencing the dynamics of electrical contact bounce in the medium-duty range of current loading (1-30 A) is presented. A measurement system which offers an improvement in the monitoring of mechanism dynamics is described. The system is based on the measurement of small impact displacements using an infrared optical method. In addition, the measurement of impact forces is achieved using a piezoelectric film (PVDF). The results show the effect of current loading and the associated thermal softening on the impact and the separation characteristics occurring during contact bounce

Keywords

displacement measurement; electrical contacts; impact (mechanical); infrared detectors; 1 to 30 A; PVDF; contact bounce; current loading; impact forces; infrared optical method; mechanism dynamics monitoring; medium duty contacts; piezoelectric film; separation characteristics; small impact displacements; thermal softening; Circuits; Contacts; Current supplies; Energy dissipation; Optical films; Softening; Surges; Tellurium; Thermal loading; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical Contacts, 1990. Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth IEEE Holm Conference on ... and the Fifteenth International Conference on Electrical Contacts

Conference_Location

Montreal, Que.

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HOLM.1990.112988

Filename

112988