The evaluation of wear in the fretting of electrical contact surfaces

Consideration is given to methods for the evaluation of surface wear from fretted electrical contact surfaces. The surfaces under consideration are selected for in-vivo applications, they are testing using purpose built fretting apparatus to investigate intermittency. The intermittency is associated with high frequency transients in the contact resistance between the two interfaces. These events can have serious consequences for the electronic signal and sensing systems. The intermittency events have been shown to be related to the wear processes occurring at the interface. Consideration is given to two optical scanning methods for the evaluation of the surface wear in terms of the volumetric wear of the surfaces