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.

At present, during the design of sealed electromagnetic relay, the tolerances of design parameters are given with experience. The designer can't provide quantificational reliability index, and the blindness of tolerance distribution also causes unnecessary increase of machining cost. According to the study of electromagnetic force and spring force characteristics of a certain sealed electromagnetic relay with polarized magnetic system, this paper analyzed the influence of main design parameters' tolerances to the tolerance bands of electromagnetic force and spring force characteristics and achieved the strong correlative factors (viz. design parameters) that have obvious effect on tolerance bands of electromagnetic force and spring force characteristics. Then based on the calculation of reliability, the tolerance distribution method of key design parameters was given. This method not only can make the designed product satisfy requirement of reliability, but also reduce the machining cost.

An electromagnetic relay (EMR) is widely used in automatic control field, and its dynamic characteristics play a significant role in EMR researches. According to structural features of the EMR, a dynamic characteristics testing and analyzing system (DCTAS) based on CCD digital image processing technique is designed and implemented. By using the DCTAS, the dynamic characteristics (include displacement, velocity, acceleration and force characteristics) of EMR whose operating time is less than 12 ms and armature travel is less than 10 mm can be investigated. The comparison of testing data obtained by the DCTAS and that of by a high speed camera indicates the validity of the system to EMR dynamic characteristics testing.