Arc erosion mechanism and surface characteristics of TiN particles reinforced Ag based electrical contact materials

IF 5.3 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL Wear Pub Date : 2025-02-13 DOI:10.1016/j.wear.2025.205900

Jun Wang , Zhiguo Li , Huimin Zhang , Youchang Sun , Zhe Wang , Henry Hu , Songtao Liu , Xiaoyun Yuan , Xudong Chen

{"title":"Arc erosion mechanism and surface characteristics of TiN particles reinforced Ag based electrical contact materials","authors":"Jun Wang , Zhiguo Li , Huimin Zhang , Youchang Sun , Zhe Wang , Henry Hu , Songtao Liu , Xiaoyun Yuan , Xudong Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.wear.2025.205900","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electrical contact materials (ECMs) are crucial for ensuring the stability and efficiency of electrical instruments and electronic devices, as they regulate current flow. As an essential component of ECMs, Ag-SnO<sub>2</sub> composite ECMs exhibit excellent conductivity and weld resistance. However, the resistance of materials to arc erosion diminishes as the frequency of arc erosion increases. Herein, titanium nitride (TiN) particles reinforced silver (Ag) based electrical contact materials were synthesized using a combination of high-energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering (SPS) techniques. The results indicated that TiN particles reinforced Ag based electrical contact materials could strengthen the interface bonding, which can dramatically improve the microhardness (up to 145.3 HV), conductivity (up to 68.9 %IACS), density (up to 98 %) and resistance to arc erosion. After 5 × 10<sup>4</sup> times arc erosion cycles, the mass loss of the Ag-TiN contact material is 0.0125 g, representing approximately 0.19 % of the total mass. Meanwhile, the friction properties of the electric contact materials were evaluated, and the results indicated that the Ag-TiN electric contact materials exhibited superior friction resistance, with an average friction coefficient of 0.8305. Furthermore, the decomposition of TiN ceramic particles under arc energy leads to the formation of highly thermally stable titanium dioxide (TiO<sub>2</sub>) dendrites on the contact surface, which mitigates mass loss, effectively reducing arc erosion and extending the contact materials service life.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23970,"journal":{"name":"Wear","volume":"566 ","pages":"Article 205900"},"PeriodicalIF":5.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Wear","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043164825001693","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Electrical contact materials (ECMs) are crucial for ensuring the stability and efficiency of electrical instruments and electronic devices, as they regulate current flow. As an essential component of ECMs, Ag-SnO₂ composite ECMs exhibit excellent conductivity and weld resistance. However, the resistance of materials to arc erosion diminishes as the frequency of arc erosion increases. Herein, titanium nitride (TiN) particles reinforced silver (Ag) based electrical contact materials were synthesized using a combination of high-energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering (SPS) techniques. The results indicated that TiN particles reinforced Ag based electrical contact materials could strengthen the interface bonding, which can dramatically improve the microhardness (up to 145.3 HV), conductivity (up to 68.9 %IACS), density (up to 98 %) and resistance to arc erosion. After 5 × 10⁴ times arc erosion cycles, the mass loss of the Ag-TiN contact material is 0.0125 g, representing approximately 0.19 % of the total mass. Meanwhile, the friction properties of the electric contact materials were evaluated, and the results indicated that the Ag-TiN electric contact materials exhibited superior friction resistance, with an average friction coefficient of 0.8305. Furthermore, the decomposition of TiN ceramic particles under arc energy leads to the formation of highly thermally stable titanium dioxide (TiO₂) dendrites on the contact surface, which mitigates mass loss, effectively reducing arc erosion and extending the contact materials service life.

查看原文

微信好友朋友圈 QQ好友复制链接

本刊更多论文

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文去求助

来源期刊

Wear 工程技术-材料科学：综合

CiteScore

8.80

自引率

8.00%

发文量

280

审稿时长

47 days

期刊介绍： Wear journal is dedicated to the advancement of basic and applied knowledge concerning the nature of wear of materials. Broadly, topics of interest range from development of fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of wear to innovative solutions to practical engineering problems. Authors of experimental studies are expected to comment on the repeatability of the data, and whenever possible, conduct multiple measurements under similar testing conditions. Further, Wear embraces the highest standards of professional ethics, and the detection of matching content, either in written or graphical form, from other publications by the current authors or by others, may result in rejection.