The formation of the delamination wear of the pure carbon strip and its influence on the friction and wear properties of the pantograph and catenary system

Abstract

Delamination wear is one of main wear mechanisms of carbon strip of the pantograph-catenary system in the high-speed sliding friction with electric current. In this work, a series of experiments were carried out to simulate the real operating conditions and explore the causes, forming and expanding mechanism of the delamination wear utilizing a ring-on-block wear tester, under high-speed of 350 km/h, strong electric current of 250A and heavy normal loads. Meanwhile, the arc discharge and interface temperature were investigated to clarify the friction and wear mechanisms. The experimental results indicate that the delamination wear of the carbon strip forms expands based on the severe arc erosion, which reveals that arc discharge is a main factor causes the delamination wear. Moreover, the SEM images and EDX analysis show that the plowing wear and copper transfer are the main wear mechanisms of the contact wire, especially, the copper transfer from the contact wire increases suddenly when the delamination wear occurs.