In electric railway pantograph system,the wear rate is an important index to measure the running state of the train and the service state of the contact wire.In order to fully simulate the wear rate of the pantograph-catenary system,the friction and wear test on the sliding plate and contact wire was carried out on the self-built sliding electric contact friction and wear tester.The effects of the surface roughness,normal pressure,contact current and running speed on the wear rate of the sliding plate were analyzed.The results show that the wear rate of sliding plate increases with the increase of initial surface roughness of the sliding plate,contact current,normal pressure and running speed,while the effect of surface roughness on wear rate is reduced under high load high load.There is a critical surface roughness when sliding plate friction from running in period to stable friction period.When the initial surface roughness of the sliding plate is equal to the critical roughness,the wear rate is the lowest.The wear process of sliding plates with different initial surface roughness is different in the running period,while the wear process tends to be consistent in the stable friction period,and the surface roughness of the sliding plate is also close after friction test.