Fig. 2

Simulated relationship between the electrode displacement \(u_{\textrm{z}}\) and the resulting arc length \(s(u_{\textrm{z}})\) as well as the corresponding contact area \(M_{\textrm{cs}}(u_{\textrm{z}})\). The seven data points for \(s(u_{\textrm{z}})\) were extracted from the mechanical contact simulation and used to calculate the associated contact areas \(M_{\textrm{cs}}(u_{\textrm{z}})\). The fitted curves \(\hat{s}(u_{\textrm{z}})\) and \(\hat{M}_{\textrm{cs}}(u_{\textrm{z}})\) are shown for illustrative purposes only and were not used for further analytical approximations.