The use of vacuum interrupters (VIs) as the current interruption component for switches, circuit breakers, reclosers and contactors operating at distribution voltages has escalated since their introduction in the mid-1950’s. This electrical product has developed a dominating position for switching and protecting distribution circuits. VIs are even being introduced into switching products operating at transmission voltages. Among the reasons for the VI’s popularity are its compactness, its range of application, its low cost, its superb electrical and mechanical life and its ease of application. Its major advantage is its well-established reliability. In this paper we show how this reliability has been achieved by design, by mechanical life testing and by electrical performance testing. We introduce the “sealed for life” concept for the VI’s integrity. We discuss this in terms of what is meant by a practical leak rate for VIs with a life of over 30 years. We show that a simple high voltage withstand test is an easy and effective method for monitoring the long-term vacuum integrity. Finally we evaluate the need for routine inspection of this electrical product when it is used in adverse ambient environments.

Despite the use of various preventive maintenance measures, there are still a number of problem areas that can adversely affect system reliability. Also, economical constraints have pushed the designs of power connections closer to the limits allowed by the existing standards. The major parameters influencing the reliability and life of Al-Al and Al-Cu connections are identified. The effectiveness of various palliative measures is determined and the misconceptions about their effectiveness are dealt in detail.

Electric contact discharge is subject closely related to digital information transmission, and integrity of digital signals for realizing high reliablility transmission. This kind of problem is a part of EMC (electromagnetic compatibility). From such a viewpoint, contact noise problems will be mentioned which disturb and degrade digital signals. The induction noise and radiation noise from discharge, electrostatic discharge (ESD), and connector related fundamental subject will be mentioned.

Particle pollution in air, also sometimes known as fine dust contamination, may cause electric contact failure. Recent research further proved that the fine particle is becoming a major disruption of the electronic connectors in signal transmission system. This paper specifies the connector contact in mobile phone application. To study the contact failure of mobile phone, a series of inspections and analytical research methods are introduced. Special features that cause the contact failure are summarized. Particle accumulation is the main problem; organic material such as lactates from sweat of the human body may act as adhesives to stick the separate particles together and make them adhere on the contact surface; chemical properties of dust cause serious local corrosion. The corrosion products may trap the particles and firmly attach on the contact surface; micro motion frequently occurs at the contact interface. Hard particle can be embedded into the surface, and soft particle could be squeezed and inserted into the contact; silicon compounds in dust play the most important role in forming high resistance regions that lead to failure; deposition of particles depends on the amount of materials, static electricity attracting force and gravity force applied on the particles. Current dust test can hardly reflect the serious contact failure. It is difficult to simulate the complexity of contact failure caused by particle contamination. Thus alternative ways of simulation experiment and improvement of contact reliability are proposed.

This paper outlines the significance of enhancing the instantaneous protection reliability of low voltage circuit breakers and describes their main failure modes. The instantaneous failure mechanism of low voltage circuit breakers was analyzed so that measures to improve instantaneous protection reliability can be determined. Furthermore, the theory of the instantaneous characteristics calibration device for low voltage circuit breakers and the method of eliminating the non-periodic component of test current are given in detail. Finally, the test results are presented.

Operational reliability evaluation theory reflects real-time reliability level of power system. The component failure rate varies with operating conditions. The impact of real-time operating conditions such as ambient temperature and transformer MVA (megavolt-ampere) loading on transformer insulation life is studied in this paper. The formula of transformer failure rate based on the winding hottest-spot temperature (HST) is given. Thus the real-time reliability model of transformer based on operating conditions is presented. The work is illustrated using the 1979 IEEE Reliability Test System. The changes of operating conditions are simulated by using hourly load curve and temperature curve, so the curves of real-time reliability indices are obtained by using operational reliability evaluation.

A kind of low power connector used e.g. in household appliances was partly burned in routine experiment. The heat sources were four paralleled contacts constructed by springs (Sn/CuSn-alloy) in socket and a plug sheet (Ni/Steel) while mating. The contact interfaces were detected by scanning electronic microscope (SEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), obvious wear tracks and various contaminants, including element Si, Al, Na, K, S, Cl, O, etc., were found. The contamination degrees on the four paralleled contacts were different, so that the ratio of average contact resistance on the four contacts was about 5:8:3:1. The maximum contact resistance on contacts of the plug sheet reached 28 Ω. The main failure reasons were fretting and contamination between the contact interfaces. Fretting simulation showed that connection resistance of connectors was raised up, even to ohms level. When the current increased to 5 A, the socket housing was heated and decomposed. By the thermal analysis, it was estimated that the connector would be burned under the lower current if the current was not evenly distributed on the four paralleled contacts caused by uneven contamination. Improvement methods for connector failure are also discussed.

Undesirable repulsive force between contact members due to both a current path shrink near a real contact area and/or so-called pinch effect is particularly onerous for power switch applications, and results in either contact floating or bouncing which are associated with an electric arc following contact welding. This problem is of great importance for any circuit breaker especially for compact low voltage vacuum circuit breakers. To avoid contact floating at closure and during any inrush current under short circuit conditions, the electrodynamic repulsive force can be employed successfully if we use a special compensation system flexibly combined with the contact itself. However to select and design the compensation system properly, its efficiency has to be known. This paper presents an approach to obtain the electrodynamic force value depending on different shaped (rectangular, square, circle and arch) copper plates used in the compensator by using ANSYS for current values 40 kA RMS. Curve-fitting was done according to the calculating results, the optimization designing of compensation unit is based on them.

Thermal analysis and thermal diagnose are important for small power connector especially in electronic devices since their structure is usually compact. In this paper thermal behavior of small power connector was investigated. It was found that the contact resistance increased due to the Joule heating, and that increased contact resistance produced more Joule heating; this mutual action causes the connector to lose efficiency. The thermal distribution in the connector was analyzed using finite element method (FEM). The failure mechanism is discussed. It provides basis for improving the structure. The conclusion was verified by experimental results.

The effect of dust particles on electric contacts and a hazardous size range of hard dust particles using a rigid model were discussed before. As further research, elastic-plastic model of finite element analysis was established in this work, which is closer to real condition. In this work, the behavior of large size and small size particles, and the influence of particles hardness were investigated. The calculating result of small-size particles presents a general hazardous size coefficient for different contact surface morphology; for large-size particles, it presents a hazardous size coefficient for complicated composition of the dust. And the effect of the dust shape is also discussed.

The paper deals with a new model of linear induction motor (LIM) to improve the reliability of the system. Based on the normal equation circuit of LIM considering the dynamic end effect, an equivalent circuit model with compensation of large end effect is constructed when the end effect force at synchronism is of braking character. The equivalent circuit model is used for secondary-flux oriented control of LIM. Single neuron network PI unit for LIM servo-drive is also discussed. The effectiveness of mathematical model for drive control is verified by simulations.

In this paper, a modified transient finite element (FE) algorithm for the performance analysis of magnetically levitated vehicles of electromagnetic type is presented. The algorithm incorporates the external power system and vehicle’s movement equations into FE model of transient magnetic field computation directly. Sliding interface between stationary and moving region is used during the transient analysis. The periodic boundaries are implemented in an easy way to reduce the computation scale. It is proved that this method can be used for both electro-motional static and dynamic cases. The test of a transformer and an EMS-Maglev system reveals that the method generates reasonable results at very low computational costs comparing with the transient FE analysis.

This paper first discusses the operating principle of instantaneous reactive power theory. Then, the theory is introduced into shunt active power filter and its control scheme is studied. Finally, Matlab/Simulink power system toolbox is used to simulate the system. In the simulation model, as the most common harmonic source, 3-phase thyristor bridge rectifier circuit is constructed. The simulation results before and after the shunt active filter was switched to the system corresponding to different firing angles of the thyristors are presented and analyzed, which demonstrate the practicability and reliability of the proposed shunt active filter scheme.

The performance in vibration environment of switching apparatus containing mechanical contact is an important element when judging the apparatus’s reliability. A piecewise linear two-degrees-of-freedom mathematical model considering contact loss was built in this work, and the vibration performance of the model under random external Gaussian white noise excitation was investigated by using Monte Carlo simulation in Matlab/Simulink. Simulation showed that the spectral content and statistical characters of the contact force coincided strongly with reality. The random vibration character of the contact system was solved using time (numerical) domain simulation in this paper. Conclusions reached here are of great importance for reliability design of switching apparatus.

Tolerance design, including tolerance analysis and distribution, is an important part of the electronic system’s reliability design. The traditional design needs to construct mathematic model of material circuit, which involves large amount of workload and lacks of practicability. This paper discusses the basic theory of electronic system’s reliability tolerance design and presents a new design method based on EDA (Electronic Design Automatic) software. This method has been validated through the application research on reliability tolerance design of the DC hybrid contactor’s control circuit.

Published research is minimal on vibration characteristics of hermetically sealed electromagnetic relay (EMR) exposed to mechanical environment. The vibration characteristics of armature system, link contact system with electromagnetic system will cause EMR malfunction. The nonlinear dynamics model of armature systems was studied by considering electromagnetic attraction force and opposite mechanical force in this paper. Angular displacements of armature under different sinusoidal vibration conditions are solved in order to obtain the failure mode result from armature system. Vibration tests showed the presented analyzing method is suitable for EMR. The conclusions are instructive for increasing vibration resistance of armature systems of EMR, and are significant for reliability design of switch apparatus.

Reliability tolerance design of electromagnetic relay during its design period plays an essential role in guaranteeing the consistencies of reliability and output characteristic. The reliability tolerance design can ensure that the products would work well under the influence of disturbing factors (including internal interference, external interference, and machining dispersion). Compared with static characteristic, dynamic characteristic of electromagnetic relay can describe its operating process better. This article researches influence of the three kinds of disturbing factors on the dynamic characteristic of electromagnetic relay based on calculating dynamic characteristic. Then, the dynamic reliability tolerance design method of electromagnetic relay is discussed considering three kinds of disturbing factors. Conclusions reached can help to assure the reliability of electromagnetic relay from the beginning of design.

Particle Impact Noise Detection (PIND) test is a reliability screening technique for hermetic device that is prescribed by MIL-PRF-39016E. Some test conditions are specified, although MIL-PRF-39016E did not specify how to obtain these conditions. This paper establishes the dynamics model of vibration process based on first order mass-spring system. The corresponding Simulink model is also established to simulate vibration process in optional input excitations. The response equations are derived in sinusoidal excitations and the required electromagnetic force waves are computed in order to obtain a given vibration and shock accelerations. Last, some simulation results are given.

Nominal contact resistance, minimum erosion and material transfer are required with low cost materials working in a wide currents range for DC relays. Ag-Ni contact materials have low contact resistance, but the erosion and material transfer are large at high current level. Ag-SnO₂ contact materials have good anti-welding properties and resistance to arc erosion, but they have large contact resistance during working and are easily block SnO₂ from flocking together on the surface at low current level. In this paper, the failure mechanisms of Ag-Ce contact material were studied. The surface morphologies of the contacts after electrical endurance test for Ag-Ce contact material were compared with that of Ag-Ni and Ag-SnO₂ contact materials. The effect of Ce on the surface morphologies of the contacts after electrical endurance test was analyzed.

This paper analyzed the reliability and put forward the reliability index of overload protection for moulded case circuit breaker. The success rate was adopted as its reliability index of overload protection. Based on the reliability index and the reliability level, the reliability examination plan was analyzed and a test device for the overload protection of moulded case circuit-breaker was developed. In the reliability test of overload protection, two power sources were used, which reduced the time of conversion and regulation between two different test currents in the overload protection test, which made the characteristic test more accurate. The test device was designed on the base of a Windows system, which made its operation simple and friendly.

Because of the different ways in which contact materials work, the basic requirements for silver metal oxide contact materials are different. They are anti-welded and anti-erosion when closed, anti-erosion when broken, and arc easily moved and have smaller contact resistance. In this paper, La₂O₃ is used as a stable oxide in contact material to replace CdO. A new type of Ag/SnO₂-La₂O₃-Bi₂O₃ contact material is first obtained through using powder metallurgical method. Then electrical contact material parameter tester is used to test the electrical contact performance of the contact material. Through experiments, the arcing voltage and current curves, arcing energy curves, fusion power curves while broken and contact resistance while closed were obtained. Analysis of the results showed that the addition of La₂O₃ makes the contact material have the following advantages: smaller electrical wear, smaller arc energy, smaller contact resistance and arc is more easily extinguished.

With the current development trend of Ethernet gradually towards the control network of plant-floor layer and devices layer, much management information on Intelligent Circuit Breaker Controller (ICBC) is becoming distributed and networked. This paper describes a mixing structure of complex industrial field control network based on Ethernet frame, then mainly discusses three network management methods of ICBC, such as the interconnection method based on PCI, embedded gateway and embedded Web server. At the same time, it also gives the basic hardware framework of implementing interconnection, the type of main components, and the real-time operation system supporting the embedded TCP/IP protocols and Web server.

The switching arc that occurs in contact gap when contact of low voltage apparatus closes or breaks in electric circuit is harmful to the contacts, insulation, and reliability of electrical gear because of its very high temperature. As arcing time is very short in switching gear, it is very difficult to observe arc phenomena directly for researchers. Therefore, visualization of switching arc is important for understanding arc phenomena, to analyze the arc features, and to improve the design and reliability of switching gear. Based on analyzing the visualization methods proposed by researchers, a new switching arc capturing approach is introduced in this paper. Arc image acquisition, and image processing techniques were studied. A switching arc image acquisition and visual simulation software based on high speed CCD camera hard ware system was designed and implemented to yield enhanced arc image with good visual effect.

The over-load protective relay is widely used for motor protection. The reliability of the over-load protective relay directly affects the safe running of a motor. The reliability testing and reliability analysis of the over-load protective relay is an important way to improve the reliability of products. In this paper, the reliability test method of the over-load protective relay is studied, and the reliability tests of the typical products are carried out on a reliability tester developed by authors. In terms of the testing results, the reliability analysis is finished. The failure reasons are found and the measures are put forward to improve the reliability of the products.

In this paper, the reliability of contactor relay is studied. There are three main parts about reliability test and analysis. First, in order to analyze reliability level of contact relay, the failure ratio ranks are established as index base on the product level. Second, the reliability test method is put forward. The sample plan of reliability compliance test is gained from reliability sample theory. The failure criterion is ensured according to the failure modes of contactor relay. Third, after reliability test experiment, the analysis of failure physics is made and the failure reason is found.

The dynamic contact resistances of HH52P electromagnetic relays are measured under different ambient air temperature. Their diagnostic parameters are extracted and determined. It is found that the ambient air temperature obviously influences some parameters. In order to research its influence on the electrical contact reliability of electromagnetic relay, the statistic analysis is applied to study the static contact resistance, the max of the dynamic contact resistance and the bounce time. It is found that the ambient air temperature regularly influences the three parameters. Thoroughly, the phenomenon is studied and analyzed in the point of material science so as to probe into the essential matter of it.

An intelligent detecting system based on wireless transmission is designed. Its hardware includes the card reading module, the wireless digital transmission module, the LCD module, the random password keyboard module and a 16×16 lattice word database based on e-Flash MM36SB020. Its software is a communication protocol between the central control computer and the entrance management base station. To resolve the conflicting problems occurred during the data transmission, a method of delaying time at random is proposed.

In general, every system is in one of the three states: normal, abnormal, or failure state. When the system is diagnosed as abnormal state, it needs predictive maintenance. If the system fails, an identical new one will replace it. The predictive maintenance cannot make the system “as good as new”. Under these assumptions, the reliability index and the inspection-replacement policy of a system were studied. The explicit expression of the reliability index and the average income rate (i.e., the long-run average income per unit time) are derived by using probability analysis and vector Markov process method. The criterion of feasibility for the optimal inspection-replacement policy under the maximum average income rate is obtained. The numerical example shows the optimal inspection-replacement policy can raise the average income rate when the optimal inspection-replacement policy is feasible.

The Weibull distribution has been widely used in reliability fields. A mixed Weibull distribution represents a population that consists of several Weibull subpopulations. In this paper, a new approach which combines the least-squares method with Bayes’ theorem, takes advantage of the parameter estimation for single Weibull distribution is developed to estimate the parameters of each subpopulation. The estimates given by this paper also satisfy the maximum likelihood equation. The estimates of the failure rate of the mixed Weibull population are given. An actual test data is computed by using the proposed method. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit test turns out that the proposed method yields more accurate result.

Pin and socket contacts are the key parts of electrical connector as aerospace electronic components. The contacts are also the direct carriers for signal transmitting of electronic equipments, passing the signal from the input end to the output end of electrical connector. The reliability of pin and socket contacts directly influences signal transmission. The goal of this study is to enhance the contact reliability of aerospace electrical connector. Computer simulation analysis was made on contacts performance data by utilizing the simulation system developed by PCL Language of MSC software. Furthermore, the results were experimentally validated so as to realize the objective of optimizing contacts design.