Experimental Study of Contact Arc Discharge and Contact Welding Phenomena

Contact welding phenomenon is very important, but it is very complicated. The partial welding phenomena, of which there are only a few examples in fundamental studies, have been considered on the basis of experimental results. We defined the partial uncomplete welding phenomena as the phenomena which occurs when the final contact closing time is longer than the initial contact closing time. In these experiments silver and silver-alloy contact materials are used. At first the relationships between arc duration and arc energy are measured by changing contact current and contact moving velocity. Also, the relationships between the number of operations, contact resistance, and contact surface temperature are measured. The arc duration and arc energy have quite good linear relations which we can estimate theoretically. Also, distributed arc energy is approximated by the normal distribution.