Preface to the Second Edition

Since the publication of the first edition of this book there have been some very costly system failures, which could have been prevented with a better knowledge of electrical contact phenomena. I will give two examples. The first is an electrical connector that supplied power to the “Main Fuel Shut-off Valve” in the F-16 fighter airplane. This connector used tin plated pins plugged into gold plated sockets. As will be briefly discussed in Chapter 3, the failure of this combination from fretting corrosion in the aircraft’s vibration environment caused the fuel to stop flowing to the jet engines. Several F-16 crashes have been attributed to this connector failure with a subsequent cost of over $100 M. In hindsight it is probable that this pin socket combination used extensively in the earlier F-111 airplane resulted in it cancellation. Failure of the connectors most probably resulted in this plane’s performance changing from a “terrain following” aircraft to a “terrain impacting” one. The second example occurred in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which began its initial testing in September 2008. Soon after it began to operate, a connection to a 12 MVA transformer failed. This cut power to the main compressors that operated the cryogenic system for cooling the super conducting magnets in two sections. This failure caused extensive wiring damage that cost more than $20 M to repair and set back the initial operation of this expensive experimental system by about nine months.

Electrical contact theory and practice does not have the hectic pace that we have become used to in recent years with the computer and communications technology, where obsolescence occurs not in one’s lifetime, but within one’s recent memory! In the generation since the first edition of this book was published, however, there have been significant advances in the use and understanding of electrical contacts. Therefore, we have developed this second edition in order to bring the subject up to date. Sadly, in the 15 years since the development of the first edition, five of the original authors have died: Morton Antler, Jax Glossbrenner, Doris Kulmann-Wilsdorf, Erle Shobert, and Werner Rieder. While this book continues to retain the essence of their original material, we are fortunate that a new generation of researchers has stepped in to contribute to this new edition: nine of the present contributors have received the Ragnor Holm Scientific Achievement Award for their contributions to the science of electrical contacts. The contributing authors continue to reflect the great diversity and international research in this subject. There are chapter authors from China, Japan, Europe, and the Americas. I wish again to extend a personal note of thanks to all of these contributors. The inclusion of their chapters has distilled the knowledge amassed from their years of research and of their practical experience.

Paul G. Slade, 2013