Evaporation of electric wire electrodes caused by ac arc discharge of heavy currents

This letter presents fundamental data on electrode evaporation caused by arc discharge of heavy currents. The reduction in the mass of the wire, i.e., the evaporated mass of the wire, is shown to linearly increase in proportion to the product of the current and the time of the arc. Also, the magnitude of the evaporation was larger in the order of Cu, Fe, and Al.