A statistical comparison of a clad material and gold flashed palladium-nickel under various fretting conditions

This paper presents a statistical comparison of gold flashed palladium-nickel and a clad material under fretting conditions. The clad material used in this experiment is a 10 /spl mu/-inch outer layer of ASTM B-522 (69Au-25Ag-6Pt), a 20 /spl mu/-inch intermediate layer of ASTM B-731 (60Pd-40Ag) and a nickel diffusion barrier. The variables used in the analysis are the material systems, fret amplitudes, current flowing through the contact, and relative humidity level. Three different material systems were used in the research project. They are: gold flashed palladium-nickel mated to itself, the clad material mated to itself and the clad material system mated to gold flashed palladium-nickel. The fret amplitude was changed between 20 and 50 microns. Current flowing through the contact was changed between 10 and 100 milliamp. Relative humidity was controlled at 40% or 80%. The comparison of the material systems was accomplished using an analysis of variance; technique and contrasts were used to compare the variables. This technique showed the all clad system to have the best fretting performance of the three material systems. An increase in relative humidity resulted in an increase in fretting performance. In addition, an increase in current flow or fret amplitude was found to cause a decrease in fretting performance for all three material systems.