Generally, the failure rate of a sealed relay is regarded as a constant value, no matter where and how it is used. However, the failure processes of sealed relays won't be the same under different conditions, even for one relay, its failure rate also will be changed during operations. This paper studies the failure process of a kind of sealed relay by analyzing the variations of its time parameters. Among contact resistance and all those time parameters, it is found that closing gap time can indicate the failure process of tested relay very well. For the purpose of verifying this conclusion derived from time parameters, the contacts are observed by microscope after the tested relay failed. Both theoretical calculation result of contacts gap and photos taken by microscope show that the hypothetic failure mode derived from time parameters is reasonable. Based on the failure analysis, the paper also proposes a dynamic reliability estimation method with closing gap time.

Usually the contact voltage drop or contact resistance of electromagnetic relays is observed only to identify if the contacts are failure or not on the manufactures' life tests. However, it is difficult to reveal the contact performance degradation because the variation of contact resistance may not be obvious. In this paper, a new life test technology was investigated to analyze the contact failure mechanisms and degenerative processes of electromagnetic relays by measuring their time parameters including closing time, opening time, over-travel time, rebound duration and gap time during each operation. Moreover, for the purpose of verifying the time parameters, the contact motion and contact morphology during life test were record by using a high speed camera. Both the variations of time parameters and information obtained from photos taken by high speed camera show that it involves three different degenerative phases during the whole life of a relay. The results also indicate this method is an effective technology to discriminate and diagnose the failure mechanisms for electromagnetic relays.

Electrical life is an important parameter to estimate the reliability of a relay, and it is greatly affected by load current. In order to shorten the time of life test, load current stress accelerated life tests were carried out by using a life test system designed for relay in this paper. During the life test, many parameters such as the contact resistance, the closing time and the over-travel time of relay were measured for each operation to identify the failure modes. After the life test, the failure mechanisms under each current stress, which cause the same failure mode, were analyzed by investigating the variations of parameters and observing the morphology of contact surface. In addition, for the purpose of further studying the consistency of failure mechanisms between different current stress, a Weibull statistical analysis was adopted to estimate the shape parameter of Weibull distribution because the same shape parameter means the same failure mechanism. Finally, a statistical model for estimating the lifetime under load current stress was built. The research methods and conclusions mentioned in this paper are meaningful to perform the accelerated life tests for other types of relays.