Publications

Evaluation of High Temperature Plastics as a Ceramic Replacement

Redline, Erica M.; Dial, Brent E.; Stavig, Mark E.; Sawyer, P.S.; Miller, Lance L.

This report describes the 2015-2017 fiscal year research efforts to evaluate high temperature plastics as replacement materials for ceramics in electrical contact assemblies. The main objective of this work was to assess the feasibility of replacing existing high-price ceramic inserts with a polymeric material. Current ceramic parts are expensive due to machining costs and can suffer brittle failure. Therefore, replacing the ceramic with a more cost-effective material -- in this case a plastic -- is highly desirable. Not only are plastics easier to process, but they can also eliminate final tooling and are less brittle than ceramics. This effort used a three-phase approach: selection of appropriate materials determined by a comprehensive literature review, performance of an initial thermal stability screening, understanding of aging behavior under normal and off-normal conditions, and evaluation of performance at elevated temperatures. Two polymers were determined to meet the desired criteria: polybenzimidazole, and Vespel(r) SP-1 polyimide. Polymer derived ceramics may also be useful but will require further development of molding capabilities that were beyond the scope of this program. This page intentionally left blank.