ADVANCED COPPER-TUNGSTEN COMPOSITE MATERIALS FOR THERMAL AND ELECTRICAL MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The contacts and fingers in the traditional high-voltage circuit breakers are all made of copper-tungsten alloy materials by powder metallurgy process at present. The conductivity and hardness of existing materials have reached the bottleneck, which can’t meet the requirements of working conditions. Graphene has good electrical conductivity, mechanical properties and high specific surface area. Doped into the traditional copper-tungsten alloy, graphene is expected to greatly improve the electrical conductivity and hardness of copper-tungsten electric contacts, which could make the alloy have excellent mechanical and electrical properties at the same time. It has become the main development direction of current electrical contact materials research. In this paper, the research progress of strengthening methods of traditional copper-tungsten electric contact materials by graphene and other reinforcing agents is systematically reviewed, and the strengthening mechanism of graphene on copper-tungsten electric contact materials is explored, which can provide technical guidance for the development and application of new high strength and high conductivity graphene-reinforced copper-tungsten electric contact materials with new performance and long electrical life.