High-Throughput Measurement of the Contact Resistance of Metal Electrode Materials and Uncertainty Estimation
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electronics Article High-Throughput Measurement of the Contact Resistance of Metal Electrode mAterials and Uncertainty Estimation Chao Zhang and Wanbin Ren * School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 30 October 2020; Accepted: 4 December 2020; Published: 6 December 2020 Abstract: Low and stable contact resistance of metal electrode mAterials is mAinly demanded for reliable and long lifetime electrical engineering. A novel test rig is developed in order to realize the high-throughput measurement of the contact resistance with the adjustable mechanical load force and load current. The contact potential drop is extracted accurately based on the proposed periodical current chopping (PCC) method in addition to the sliding window average filtering algorithm. The instrument is calibrated by standard resistors of 1 mW, 10 mW, and 100 mW with the accuracy of 0.01% and the associated measurement uncertainty is evaluated systematically. Furthermore, the contact resistance between standard indenter and rivet specimen is measured by the commercial DMM-based instruments and our designed test rig for comparison. The variations in relative expanded uncertainty of the measured contact resistance as a function of various mechanical load force and load current are presented. Keywords: electrode mAterial; high-throughput characterization; contact resistance; measurement; uncertainty estimation 1. Introduction Metal electrode mAterials are widely used in the electrical and electronic engineering for conducting and/or switching current, such as connectors [1], electromechanical devices [2], thin-film devices [3], microelectromechanical system [4], and switchgear [5], etc. The roughness of the mAterial surfaces causes only small peaks or asperities within the apparent surface to be in contact. The induced constriction resistance and film resistance together mAke up the contact resistance. Today, ‘High performance and high reliability’ of electromechanical devices and electronic components that are used in the high-end equipment mAnufacturing industry is always required. Therefore, the optimal selection method for supporting electrode mAterial and contact resistance measuring method are needed to mAke them perfect. For example, the contact resistance measurement has been successfully used to evaluate the conditions of mAin contacts and arcing contacts without dismantling the high voltage SF6 circuit breaker [6]. Additionally, it could be used to estimate the contact a-spot temperature, and further judge the contact welding situation by classical Voltage–Temperature theory [5,7]. Particularly, the contact resistance results could be selected as the criteria of contact mAterial surface quality, including roughness, hardness, or contamination situation [8,9]. The value of contact resistance is normally very small, ranging from microohms to a few milliohms in cases of practical interest. However, for contacts with worn surface or corroded or contaminated surface, the contact resistance dramatically increases into the scale of ohms or higher [10–12]. The general described contact resistance test methods are characterized as four-terminal Kelvin configuration. Electronics 2020, 9, 2079; doi:10.3390/electronics9122079 www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics Electronics 2020, 9, 2079 2 of 13 The challenge of measuring microohm scales of contact resistance is that the value is so low level that overwhelmed by the diverse noise easily. Particularly, the thermal potentials are the mAin source of influencing the measured voltage signals. Either AC or DC test currents mAy be used, but the most general method of eliminating the effects of thermal potentials is to mAke forward-and-reverse-current readings and calculating resistance. The measurement accuracy of contact resistance could reach up to 0.1 µW by using the innovative methods [13–17]. The scientific instruments for single pair contact mAterial are developed by mAny researchers in order to investigate and evaluate the electrical contact characteristics. Some instruments also include fretting mode and corrosion film current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and environmental atmosphere application [13]. Particularly, the nano-scale electrical contact resistance tool (nanoECR, BRUKER, Minneapolis, MN, USA), provide a powerful solution for simultaneous, in-situ electrical and mechanical measurements [17]. Unfortunately, the mentioned contact resistance measurement apparatus are always based on the commercial digital multimeter for the research work in the laboratory. Additionally, only one contact pair could be tested in one experiment so that the test efficiency is very low. Nevertheless, the loading range of the contact force is too large (up to 1 ton) and the loading accuracy ( 1 kg) is too low. These could not meet the contact resistance measurement requirements ± within 500 g contact force for batches of rivet contacts in engineering. Consequently, the mAin goal of the present work is to fill this gap by developing an apparatus which allow simultaneous automated measurements of contact force and contact resistance with the variable contact current and open voltage. This apparatus should also provide motion mechanism for precise positioning among samples and associated control programme which satisfy the high-throughput measurement. In this paper, we design a novel test rig (including the circuit and associated programme for measuring the low value contact resistance, the electrical actuators combinations and the auxiliary optical observation unit) that could meet the mentioned requirement. A suit of DC standard resistors are selected as the calibration source for minimizing the measurement error. Further, the contact resistance results of electrode mAterials are measured and compared with the use of our designed test rig and commercial Digital Multimeter instruments simultaneously. Finally, the uncertainty of measured contact resistance is estimated and analysed in detail. 2. Description of the New Designed Test Rig In general, the new designed test rig allows studying the high-throughput measurement of contact resistance between two electrode mAterials under the selectable load force and load current. It was designed to fulfill the goals mentioned in the introduction: Variable load forces to achieve pure elastic or elastic–plastic contact mode. • Different electrical current levels to discriminate the roles of electrical loads and mechanical loads • in contact resistance. Highly efficient test for batches of rivet contacts: 10 s for single contact pair and 2 min for mAximum • 12 contact pairs automatically. Measurement principle conforming to the regulation of Standard Test Methods ASTM B539-2013 • and ASTM B667-2014. 2.1. Mechanical Structures The designed mechanical structure (shown in Figure1) is placed in a dust-tight transparent Plexiglas housing which is secured on a vibration isolation base to ensure the stability of the measurement. The rivet samples holder is fixed on the base. Furthermore, there are multiple workstations in the holder which could clamp mAximum 12 rivets simultaneously in one row. The clamping structure is designed suitable for different contact dimensions. The minimum shank diameter of rivet samples should be no less than 1 mm. The counterpart probe could be a silver palladium AgPd alloy indenter with 10 µm gold coating (hemispherical shape, 0.5 mm diameter) or Electronics 2020, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 14 Electronics 2020, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 14 palladiumElectronics 2020 AgPd, 9, 2079 alloy indenter with 10 μm gold coating (hemispherical shape, 0.5 mm diameter)3 of or 13 apalladium mated rivet. AgPd The alloy roughness indenter of thewith indenter 10 μm tipgold is coatingmeasured (hemispherical by a con-focal shape, optical 0.5 microscope mm diameter) (LEXT or 3000,a mated Olympus, rivet. The Tokyo, roughness Japan) of and the the indenter surface tip roughness is measured (SRa) by isa con-focal0.4 μm, calculated optical microscope from a scan (LEXT size a mAted rivet. The roughness of the indenter tip is measured by a con-focal optical microscope (LEXT of3000, 50 μOlympus,m × 50 μ m.Tokyo, Figure Japan) 2 schematically and the surface shows roughness the four (SRa)-wire is measurement 0.4 μm, calculated setup, from including a scan sizethe 3000, Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) and the surface roughness (SRa) is 0.4 µm, calculated from a scan size probeof 50 holderμm × 50 structure μm. Figure and the2 schematically rivet clamping shows struct theure four of one-wire measurement measurement workstation. setup, including It is noted the of 50 µm 50 µm. Figure2 schematically shows the four-wire measurement setup, including the thatprobe the holder surfaces× structure of components and the rivetwithin clamping the applied struct currenture of oneand measurementtest voltage circuits workstation. are electroplated It is noted probe holder structure and the rivet clamping structure of one measurement workstation. It is noted withthat thegold surfaces to reduce of componentsthe connection within resistance. the applied Furthermore, current and the coaxialtest voltage shielded circuits lines are are electroplated selected to that the surfaces of components within the applied current and test voltage circuits are electroplated reducewith gold the tointerference reduce the from connection external resistance. signals. The Furthermore, probe is attached the coaxial to a “bow”