Integrated vehicle health management: An approach to dealing with lifetime prediction considerations on relays

摘要

Electrical contacts provide a well-proven solution to switching various loads in a wide variety of applications, such as power distribution, control applications, automotive and telecommunications. However, electrical contacts are known for limited reliability due to degradation effects upon switching contacts due to arcing and fretting. Essentially, the life of the device may be determined by the life of the contacts. Failure to trip, spurious tripping and contact welding can, in critical applications such as control systems for avionics and nuclear power application, cause significant costs due to downtime, as well as safety implications.