Silver-coated stainless steel strip for movable contacts and method of producing the same
AssigneeFurukawa Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsSatoshi Suzuki, Kuniteru Mihara, Naofumi Tokuhara
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Abstract
An electrical contact comprising a silver-coated stainless steel strip, which has an underlying layer comprising any one of nickel, cobalt, nickel alloys, and cobalt alloys, on at least a part of the surface of a stainless steel substrate, and has a silver or silver alloy layer formed as an upper layer, in which a copper or copper alloy layer with a thickness of 0.05 to 2.0 μm is provided between the silver or silver alloy layer and the underlying layer; and a producing method of the above-described electrical contact, in which the silver-coated stainless steel strip is subjected to a heat-treating in a non-oxidative atmosphere.
Claims4
An electrical contact having a metallic contact surface, wherein the electrical contact comprises:
- a stainless steel substrate;
- an underlying layer comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt, nickel alloys, and cobalt alloys, said underlying layer being provided on at least a part of the stainless steel substrate;
- an interlayer of copper or a copper alloy, said interlayer having a thickness of 0.05 to 2.0 μm and being provided on the underlying layer;
- and
- an upper layer of silver or a silver alloy, said upper layer being provided on the interlayer and being positioned at the metallic contact surface of said electrical contact;
- wherein said electrical contact is located adjacent to at least two electrical terminals, and said contact is movable between a closed position in which said contact closes an electrical circuit between the terminals and an opened position in which said contact opens said electrical circuit between the terminals, and
- wherein a majority of stress applied on said electrical contact when moving between the opened position and the closed position is in a direction perpendicular parallel to the thickness directions of said layers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.