Process for producing a shaped article from contact material based on silver, contact material and shaped article
AssigneeSiemens Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsFranz Hauner, Gunter Tiefel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A contact material, a shaped article or contact piece and a process for producing a shaped article from a contact material based on silver, include forming a powder mixture from silver and a metal oxide, and metallurgically processing the powder to form the shaped article with the metal oxide being reduced to metal. Since metal oxide powders are obtainable with a very much smaller particle size than metal powders, it is possible to obtain a contact material with a mean particle size of the metal incorporated as an active component of less than 1 .mu.m. Such a contact material has particularly favorable switching properties as a result of the fine particle size.
Claims18
A process for producing a shaped article from a contact material based on silver, which comprises:
- forming a powder mixture from silver and a metal oxide;
- and
- processing the powder mixture by powder metallurgy to form a shaped article with the metal oxide completely reduced to metal.
In a contact material based on silver, the improvement comprising at least one further metallic component formed of at least one material selected from the group consisting of iron (Fe) and rhenium (Re) and having a mean particle size less than 1 .mu.m.
A shaped article, comprising a contact material based on silver, and at least one further metallic component formed of at least one material selected from the group consisting of iron (Fe) and rhenium (Re) and having a mean particle size less than 1 .mu.m.
The shaped article according to claim 18, wherein said iron (Fe) is present in a proportion by mass of between 1% and 50% and said rhenium (Re) is present in a proportion by mass of between 0.01% and 5%.
A contact piece for power engineering switching equipment, in particular for a low-voltage switch, comprising a contact material based on silver, and at least one further metallic component formed of at least one material selected from the group consisting of iron (Fe) and rhenium (Re) and having a mean particle size less than 1 .mu.m.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.