Recently occurrence of failures and side wears in carbon brushes for main motors on electric ears or locomotives has been substantially cut.
Since 1946 the Authors have been engaged in the study for failure prevention and collection of basic design data for a failure-proof carbon brush and in 1951 set about its tentative production after careful examination of collected data.
Main points of basic data obtained are:
1) With the Kowanishi-made pitch coke as material, the highest mechanical properties can be secured.
2) As a binder a 3 to 7 blending of tar and pitch will give better results if -added to the extent of 30-35 % besides the main constituent.
3) Pressing under 120°C heat is recommendable.
4) Use of a certain chemical to retain as much residual coke as possible will increase the amount of fixed carbon, thus producing a strong brush.
5) Optimum forming pressure is 1.24, 5 t/cm
2.
6) Brush block should be shaped thin and large for better results.
7) To ensure uniformity of production, a special operation should be made in blending and (nixing under heat.
These are the results of a statistical analysis utilizing hyper greco-latin square (design of experiment) of the 32 products of Tentative A (formed thin) and B (formed thick) Tentative A-14 turned out to be the best in both characteristic and service test.
This product has the following features:
1) The conventional limit of impact 'resistance (by the impact tester) has been 60 hours. That of this one is in the range of 120-150 hrs with no failures.
2) Layer structure is hardly observed, thus a slight or no characteristic difference between pressed and lateral surface.
3) It has a large tensile strength which is highly related with failure and side wear.
4) Almost no failure nor side wear occurred in the service test, with satisfactory characteristic of wearing and commutation.
Before proceeding to a mass production, however, there is room for further study.
View full abstract