Effect of Material Combination of Metallic Contact Strip and Contact Wire
on Wear Characteristics
Sumihisa AOKI, Kunio FUKUHARA, Hiroki NAGASAWA
Several different metallic materials are applied to contact wire and contact
strip, corresponding to recent speed-up of vehicles. As it seemed necessary to
study the effect of different material combinations for contact wire and contact
strip on wearing characteristics, bench tests were carried out with 9 different
material combinations. Materials chosen were hard-drawn copper, precipitation
hardening copper alloy and mild steel for contact wire, and Cu-base sintered
alloy, Fe-base sintered alloy and mild steel for contact strip. Results are
investigated mainly from a standpoint of shedding light on wearing characteristics
under combinations of these Cu-base and Fe-base materials, with emphsis on the
effect of arccurrent and adhesion.