Research Progress on Tribology of Electrical Contact Materials

It is of great importance to do research of electric contact materials, not only for their applications in life and productions, but also for their complex friction and wear problems. This review summarized the characteristics and existing problems of several common copper-based, silver-based and gold-based electric contact materials, and analyzed current-carrying tribological behavior, friction and wear mechanism, computational simulation research and existing problems of electric contact materials under different contact load, current and sliding speed, etc. Putting forward the development of new electric contact materials with excellent properties such as graphene, as well as the wear behavior and failure mechanism of the electric contact system under multi-factor coupling in the future, which will provide certain reference value for the research and development of tribology of electric contact materials.