Study of Carbon Brush and Slip-Ring System Abrasion From Electric Contact Friction Under Special Environments

In a marine environment, the working conditions for carbon brush and slip-ring system are complicated, leading to carbon brush abrasion and a shortened replacement cycle. A research and experiment platform using a salt spraying tester has been established to study abrasion on the carbon brush and slip-ring system of a Doubly-fed machine. We conducted tests on the carbon brush and slip-ring system contact current, contact pressure, concentration of salt spray, and the experimental temperature. The improved Coulomb-viscous friction model was adopted for modelling the carbon brush abrasion. The contact current, contact pressure, salt spray concentration and temperature were introduced as the test conditions for the forecast model, and the unknown model parameters were identified through the least square method. MATLAB was utilized to fit the nonlinear model parameters using the carbon brush abrasion prediction model results. The residual error plot and test data fitting indicated that the prediction model could effectively forecast the carbon brush abrasion loss under various conditions.