Bending fatigue life evaluation of Cu-Mg alloy contact wire

Contact wire is one of the most important components used to supply electricity to railway vehicles which equipped with a pantograph. When the speed of electric vehicle is not as high as now, the failure of contact wire caused by friction and wear behaviors of carbon strip/contact wire were considered more important. But the fatigue fracture become more and more important for the failure of contact wires on account of several fatigue fractures happened while the speed of electric vehicle increase continuously. A bending fatigue tester simulating the working conditions of contact wires developed by Kang and etc has been used to evaluate the fatigue characteristic of pure copper and Cu-Sn alloy contact wires. In this study, this bending fatigue tester also is used to evaluate the fatigue characteristics of Cu-Mg alloy contact wire which developed for 400km/h high speed rail in Korea. Test result is also compared with the result of Kang’s research on pure copper contact wire. Finally, in order to evaluate the fatigue life of contact wires for any mean stress, the relationships between plastic strain and fatigue life were abstained for two kinds of contact wires combined the FE analysis.