The rationale was that the points of the star washer created the conductive
grounding path. Since the points were fairly small, and the ground fault
current was high, a fault current would be forced to flow across those tiny
point-contacts. This had the danger of causing the points to melt or arc.
The heat-sinking of the rest of the assembly will prevent overheating.
Many years ago, I tested a #18 power cord wire, cutting each strand one at a
time and then testing the impedance at 25 amps. At 3 strands, the wire failed.
The heat-sinking provided by the cut strands kept the remaining strands from
overheating.
Conventional wisdom not backed up by testing.
Best regards,
Rich
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