Objective
The aim is to improve surfaces of electrical contacts, in order to achieve better reliability against corrosion, aging, wear and vibration, and to decrease production cost through noble metal saving or improvements of plating. This will be done by better control of undesired film formation, selection of surface additives (such as lubricants thin film deposition procedures set up).
The research investigated methods for improving the surfaces of electrical contacts, in order to achieve better reliability against corrosion, ageing, wear and vibration, and to decrease production cost through noble metal saving or improvements of plating. The control of undesired film formation, the selection of surface additives (such as lubricants) and thin film deposition procedures were studied in particular.
Research has been carried out in order to improve electrical contact surfaces involved in data processing, telecommunication, automotive and consumer applications. Research focused on replacing gold by an organic film, either liquid or solid film and screening different types of existing metallic plating together with new or existing lubricants in order to optimize the coupling between both.
With respect to the organic film, 2 ways were investigated to protect the nickel used to cover the substrate. The first was to realize a thin film of liquid perfluorinated polyether (PFPE) on the metal. The second way was to electropolymerize polyacrylonitrile (PAN) on the metal, the polymer layer being heat treated in a second phase to ensure conductivity.
The PAN coating was chosen to realize a connector. However results on connector has been disappointing: contact resistance reached acceptable value only after a few sliding cycles and the friction coefficient was often too high.
A wide range of contact metallurgies used in automotive applications was surveyed and a representative test matrix selected. These included various tin, gold and silver alloys as well as less traditional finishes such as nickel and clad inlay materials.
The types of protective greases available were also surveyed and an initial screening process conducted.
The test procedures were derived from a survey of accelerated environmental tests for automotive electronics and connectors and in addition to these tests a large number samples of the test plates were exposed to various real automotive environments for up to 2 years.
The results of the test gave the following conclusions. Care should be taken to avoid contact degradation due to copper diffusion through tin and silver at elevated temperatures. Gold and silver surfaces are unlikely to suffer from fretting corrosion in automotive environments. Also, contacts with thin layer of gold are less corrosion resistant than tinned finishes in under bonnet environments. Finally, it was shown that lubricants do improve contact reliability but only if the product is properly formulated and specific to the application
Influence of film thickness, in the range of 1 to 100 mm, will be studied for various layers such as lubricants, oxidation or conversion products, grafted polymers. An original procedure based upon electropolymerisation, presently at the research stage, will be developed. Degradation mechanisms in an aggressive automotive environment will be studied on a quantitative basis; test methods will be developed; effect of applied voltage and current will be taken into account.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering tribology lubrication
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry transition metals
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry post-transition metals
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- engineering and technology materials engineering metallurgy
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Coordinator
78035 Versailles
France
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