A FACILITY FOR ELECTRICAL CONTACT RESISTANCE MEASUREMENT

A test facility was developed for directly measuring the electrical co ntact resistance of switch gear contacts of real sizes under different environmental conditions and contact pressures. It can measure contac t resistance to an order of one-tenth of a mu Omega. It sources a cons tant current in the order of mA and hence avoids Initial arcing across contacts, Experiments were conducted on brass-brass samples with diff erent contact pressures and the results are in agreement with publishe d theoretical calculations. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.