Influence of Environmental Humidity on the Electrical and Mechanical Tribological Behavior of Metal-immersed Carbon Sliders

To investigate the influence of ambient humidity on the tribological behavior of pantograph carbon slider and contact wire friction.Using a metal-immersed carbon slider and a copper-silver alloy contact wire as the friction pair, a circular block-type pantograph-catenary system current-carrying friction and wear testing bench was employed to study the variation patterns of carbon slider wear, temperature rise, arcing rate, as well as surface topography and roughness under different ambient humidities with and without current loading.

The results show that without current loading, an increase in environmental humidity is beneficial to the improvement of the self - lubricating performance of the carbon slide plate surface. Characteristics such as the wear quantity of the carbon slider plate decrease with the increase of relative humidity, and the trend gradually slows down. The wear quantity and temperature rise of the carbon slider plate at 60% RH are approximately half of those at 30% RH.