Current-Carrying Characteristics of Conductive Microfiber Rings for High Frequencies and Current Amplitudes

Rings made from millions of conductive microfibers have shown to be a suitable alternative to conventional brushes using electrically conductive carbon graphite. If properly designed, such modern brushes can not only meet all the demands on carbon brushes while excluding the problems of excessive wear and hot-spotting/thermal wear commonly quoted with the latter, but are also especially suitable for use with high-frequency currents and voltages, thereby further expanding their fields of application. In this paper, we describe the current-carrying characteristics of such rings for high frequencies up to 10 MHz and large current amplitudes of several tens of amperes. We develop the theory to understand these characteristics and thus the ring design and support and illustrate the theoretical findings with experimental results.