Fretting Corrosion of Tin-Coated Electrical Contacts

Fretting corrosion is one of the most important failure mechanisms for separable contacts with base-metal materials. The fretting corrosion behavior of a specific tin-coated connector contact has been investigated. A periodic relative displacement between the connecting parts was induced, while the contact resistance was monitored continuously. For various contact forces the experiments show a strong and reproducible relationship between the amplitude of the imposed displacement and the number of cycles to failure. This makes it possible to indicate the conditions, in terms of contact force and microdisplacement, in which a reliable contact performance can be obtained with tin-coated electrical contacts.