Latest Trend in Materials for the Contact Strip of a Pantograph

摘要

A pantograph's contact strips (hereafter referred to as contact strips) are small-size pieces attached to the top of pantographs, which allow for providing electric power to railroad rolling stocks during their travel by sliding them against a trolley wire. A description of contact slips and their trends can be found in the literature [1-3]. In the present work, an outline of pantograph's contact strips is presented; and characteristics of contact strips, materials interchangeably used in contact strips, and wear characteristics of materials used in the practice is discussed. The correspondence and a change of the state of affairs during the almost 15 years since the division and the privatization of the Japanese national railway in 1987 is considered from a materials point of view.