Experimental Study of Wear Rate Between Copper Impregnated Graphite and Copper

The catenary pantograph overhead system is key to supply electrical transports such as trains. This device still requires maintenance and is subject to failures due to wear or excessive heat. It is also a multi-physical subject where many factors influence the contact properties, making it significantly complex to study. In this work, a test bench represents this links is presented. The study is focused on the volume loss, temperature, contact voltage and friction measurements obtained for a graphite impregnated copper pin. While a factorial fractional experimental design is realized, the data are used thanks to an analysis of variance to obtain the wear rate sources between five factors.