Ensuring durability and reliability of contact rings of current collection devices when working in elastic-plastic state

The reliability of ring current-collecting devices during a given service life plays a decisive role in the operation of power supply systems of various equipment and largely depends on the strength and reliability of all its components, in particular, contact rings. One of the most important characteristics of ring current collectors is the contact resistance, which is reduced by using non-ferrous and precious materials with low resistance, while increasing the downforce between the rings of the current collector. With an increase in the compression force F of the contact ring, the resistance of the contacts decreases to a certain minimum value and practically does not decrease with further growth of the force. The dependence of the contact resistance on the compression force has the form of a power function, the coefficients of which are determined experimentally. However, the operability of the contact rings in such severe conditions can be ensured in the case of low speeds and a small number of loading cycles by using the low-cycle fatigue area on the Weller curve. Having determined the coefficients of the equation of the inclined section on the Weller curve in the area of low-cycle fatigue, it is possible to determine the number of permissible loading cycles at a given stress level or solve the inverse problem of determining the permissible stress level if the number of loading cycles is known. To substantiate the correctness of the selected compressive force and the corresponding stresses, methods for calculating the fatigue margin coefficient, as well as a method for calculating the reliability of the ring material, are proposed. Reliability is estimated by the Gauss curve and is numerically expressed in the form of the probability of failure-free operation and the probability of failure, for which the corresponding theoretical dependencies are obtained. According to the proposed methods, calculations of the rings of the current-collection device used in EXPRESS-type spacecraft were performed, which showed the operability of the methods and allowed to ensure the required service life of the contact rings and their reliability. A very simple analytical formulation of the methods allows us to solve both verification and design calculations of rings, depending on the task at hand.