Examples of electrical contacts are breakers, relays switches, and electrical discharge machining applications. You use electrical contacts every day without even thinking about it. When you flip a switch, a light goes on or off, almost like magic. You know that electricity is flowing when the light comes on or you hear the refrigerator, furnace, or air conditioner running. Electrical contacts are something we just take for granted. We don’t know or don’t want to know how they work until something goes haywire.
Electrical Contact Material
Since the discovery of copper about 9000 BC, civilization has been technologically advancing in leaps and bounds. Copper is used for a multitude of items and applications, from household uses to copper tubing, copper wire, and water pipes. A breaker in a fuse box, for instance, has a plastic housing with metal components inside. The metals used in electrical contacts can be palladium, palladium alloy, silver, silver alloy, silver graphite, silver tungsten, and base metal or plated base metal. Spring material can be copper, beryllium, copper alloy, nickel, stainless steel, and steel. These metals can be plated with gold, nickel, silver, tin, or other metal. The metal used will depend on where the electrical contact is used or how big of a load it must carry. Electrical contacts need to be oxidation resistant and have a high conductivity rating. High-power equipment brushes where abrasion will occur, so the metal surfaces need to be made of strong alloys. Some metals that augment the structural properties, such as strength, weldability, toughness, temperature strength, and corrosion resistance, are tungsten, nickel, graphite, and molybdenum.
Electrical Contact Assembly
Soldering metals together is a common method when heat strength and load are not a concern. However, brazed electrical contacts are stronger and can withstand higher temperatures and heavier electrical loads. Brazing can join almost all metals. Transit electrical contacts need the extra strength provided by brazing, with high density alloys using silver or copper blended with tungsten or molybdenum. Brazing is used for electrical components, pipe fittings, and metals with varied thicknesses.
Industries Serviced
In the automotive industry, there are electromechanical switches, sensor devices, and many more. A multitude of electrical contacts, switches, and relays are used in power transmission and distribution, low to medium voltage electric and diesel electric transportation, AC and DC motor controls household appliances material handling, and rail signaling, to name a few. A tungsten contact supplier can offer you the best electrical contacts that will provide you with years of reliable service.
2 Comments
Ben Grounds
Great article 🙂
Don QU
Now we are looking for a Copper-Silver contact (rivet) with minmum dimension. It will be used in thermal protector. Do you have this material?