Miniaturization of terminals, connectors, springs, and other contacts in automotive electric systems has imposed rigorous demands upon the principal materials used in their manufacture-copper alloys. This paper surveys the more important copper alloys and presents available data, including that from current research, which bear upon the problem of material selection.
Various coppers, copper alloys, and groups of copper alloys are described, and a brief description of mechanical and electrical properties, corrosion performance, surface characteristics, and economics is presented.
Comparative data for the various representative copper alloy groups are also presented. Such data includes comparison of mechanical strength-ultimate tensile, offset yield, and fatigue strengths, modulus of elasticity; corrosion resistance-general, stress, and crevice corrosion, dezincification; and surface characteristics-contact resistance, solderability, plating performance.
Study of the data indicates that there is no simple optimum choice for all applications. The designer and user should use the data as a guide in selection of materials for each application.