Development of Cost-Effective Automated Test System for Determining Lifetime of Gold Contacts Under Mechanical Load

Abstract:
Mechanic load tests for electrical contacts for different components have been performed and related standards have been developed for various use cases. Even though the readily available literature and standards, conditions of the testing of various components under mechanical loading remain similar. Real life operating conditions usually different then the testing conditions and even the slight difference can influence the precision of the prediction mechanisms. We propose an automated mechanical loading system to mimic real life operating condition and test lifetime of the contact parts. A cost effective, compact experimental test system was designed, produced and tested for stability issues. The automated test system successfully completed one million me chanical loading cycles on the samples and surface deformations as well as lifetime of some contact components were determined. A correlation has been found between computational model and the experimental results.