Current-Carrying Characteristics of Conductive Microfiber Electrical Contact for High Frequencies and Current Amplitudes: Theory and Applications

Rings made from millions of conductive microfibers, if designed properly, have shown to be a good electrical contact for applications that require high frequencies and high current amplitudes while minimizing the problems of excessive wear and hot-spotting/thermal wear commonly encountered with conventional sliding contacts. In this paper, we describe the current-carrying characteristics of such rings for high frequencies up to several megahertz and large current amplitudes of several tens of amperes. We develop the theory to understand these characteristics, and thus the ring design, and support and illustrate the theoretical findings with experimental results.