Volumetric erosion of a structured electrical contact surface using X-Ray Computed Tomography

Abstract

The use of 3D optical scanning methods is well established for the evaluation of volumetric wear on electrical contact surfaces. A longstanding limitation of these methods has been the accuracy to which the underlying form of the surface prior to the wear process is determined. Electrical contact surfaces are never perfectly flat, in many applications the underlying surface is nominally spherical or a freeform surface. This paper introduces newly developed methodes to enhance the capability of resolving volumetric wear on a surface with complex shape (form). These methods are applicable to a wide range of applications, but the focus here is on arcing elec-trical contacts. The paper investigates wear on a nominally spherical AgNi contact used in low voltage switch-ing applications and compares this to the wear on a surface modified using electron beam process to create a highly structured surface; under the same switching conditions. The spherical contact is analysed using a new 3D optical metrology solution using a data fusion method, which combines both metrology data and surface photographic image data. The 3D optical scanning data is then compared with surface data from X-Ray comput-ed tomography (X-CT) of the structured electrical contact surface.

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ORCID for John Mcbride: orcid.org/0000-0002-3024-0326

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