Electrical Contacts

An electrical contact is an electrical circuit component found in electrical switches, relays, connectors, and circuit breakers. Contacts can be produced from a wide variety of materials.

Sintered or infiltrated tungsten-copper, tungsten-silver, or tungsten carbide-silver contacts are used in high-performance switches for the high voltage, medium voltage, and low voltage ranges. The magnitude of switching currents can attain 100kA, and arc temperatures in excess of 10,000K can prevail for milliseconds during switching.

Umicore supplies:

• Fine and medium size tungsten powders from 1.5 µm to 10 µm with an excellent grain size distribution and a low level of impurities
• Tungsten carbide powder from 0.7µm to 5µm with a highly controlled grain size distribution