Preparation And Properties Analysis Of Cu/SnO₂ Electrical Contact Materials

Electrical contact components are mainly used in electric power system,automatic control system and information transfer etc. Electrical contact components are the core of switch relay contactor and other commonly used electrical components. Its performance directly determine the security of life and reliability of power system. So, the research on electrical contact materials has important theory value and practical significance. A large number of investigators about Ag has been developed because of the excellent lubricating characteristics as electric contact material. But silver is limited resources and recycling difficultly. Thus in order to solve this problem, Cu as the research object is studied in this paper. The research on preparation, performance test and analysis of Cu electric contact material has been expand in the experiment. Finally determine the synthesis of Cu/SnO2 electrical contact materials by high energy ball milling, and analysis the influence of adding elements to copper electrical contact material. The physical properties such as hardness, density, conductivity, and the intensity of voltage, arc ablation resistance electric contact performance are tested in this paper. X-ray diffraction, Scanning electron microscopy are used to test the organization structure, element distribution, arc ablation morphology of mixed powder and contact. The main research content of this paper and new insights are as follows:1.Ball mill process on the influence of the contact is studied in this paper. Powder has been deformed and broken continuously by mechanical force in the process of ball mill.The scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction are used to test the powder. It turned out that the powder is even tiny as spherical morphology after 4h wet ball-milling.2.Study the performance of Cu/SnO2 electric contact under the preparation of different sintering temperature atmosphere, then explore whether adding new elements can improve the performance of Cu/SnO2 contact. The finding is that Cu/SnO2 without any elements is best, with the electrical conductivity reach 49%IACS, hardness about 122 HV and the density 85%-95%. Make use of SEM study the structure and element distribution about Cu contact which this paper involved. Results showed that the atom diffuse sufficiently of Cu/SnO2 prepared by 850℃,the SnO2 nanparticles wrapped by Cu, particles equally, the fracture organization is typical ductile fracture, and the elements distribution of quenchedsamples surface are equally distributed after adding Ni、La2O3/CuO to the Cu/SnO2 electric contact.3.The electric contact performance of Cu/SnO2 contactor is studied. Research the strength of resistance to voltage, arc ablation about different composition of contact, use SEM observe arc ablation zone morphology. The results show that Cu/SnO2/Ni with high voltage resistance strength, arc ablation slightly, the surface smooth relatively and small droplets after electric breakdown. The fusion welding resistance improved after adding Ni.The research achievements of this study is benefit to improve the performance of Cu contact, and provide theoretical basis and technical support for the continuous exploration of research no silver contactor materials in further. Figure30, Table5, Reference59.