• Mcbride, John Willaim
• Lam, L.
• Swingler, J.

Abstract

The study of fretting and the associated corrosion<br/>has always been a key focus for many researchers involved in<br/>the field of electrical contacts. This phenomenon usually occurs<br/>when subjecting contacts to thermal cycling or vibration. Often,<br/>it is also the direct cause for failure in electrical connector<br/>systems and eventually leads to undesirable consequences in<br/>numerous applications. With an increasing interest invested<br/>in developing new contact materials, conducting polymers are<br/>explored as possible alternatives to improve reliability by reducing<br/>the influence of fretting degradation. In this paper, the<br/>intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs) used in the experiments<br/>are poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiopene)/poly(4-styrenesulfonate) and<br/>its blends with different weight ratios of dimethylformamide.<br/>They have conductivity levels reaching the order of 10?2 S·cm?1<br/>and possess easy processing capabilities. Contact samples are<br/>fabricated by spin-coating or drop-coating ICP onto copper<br/>surfaces to form conducting polymer contact interfaces. These<br/>samples are then placed in two different types of fretting<br/>apparatus and tested independently using the thermal cycling and<br/>vibration procedures. Field vehicles tests are also conducted. The<br/>initial experimental results reveal that the resistance decreases<br/>as temperature and the number of fretting cycles increase.<br/>Furthermore, for the same polymer blend, the type of coating<br/>technique and the coating thickness also affect the output<br/>resistance.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• corrosion
• experiment
• copper
• polymer blend