AUTHOR(S):

Chieh-Tsung Chi

TITLE

To Develop a New Arcless and Power-Saving Power Relay with Hybrid Contacts

KEYWORDS

Power relay, Electromagnetic interference, Power electronic device, Hybrid contact.

ABSTRACT

When a power relay is used as a switching device to close and break the loading current by using its mechanical contacts, especially DC heavy load, high-temperature arc is often generated between their contacts due to contact bounces and heavy DC load current flowing them. Arc often leads to seriously shorten the using life and decreases the operating stability of contact and application system. Besides, the contact arc is also radiates electromagnetic interference at the same time. In this paper, the author provides a new power relay with hybrid contact. It is then able to be used as the switching device of DC heavy load. This hybrid contact is composed of power electronic devices and the original mechanical contacts of power relay in parallel. The instantaneous heavy DC load current is arranged to flow through the power electronic device. Meanwhile the stable load current flows through the mechanical contact. Both advantages of these constituting devices are included in this hybrid switching device. The arcless and power-saving purpose will be acquired. For the purpose of verifying the feasibility of this new hybrid switching device, a laboratory-scale prototype of this new power relay with hybrid contact was established in our laboratory. Several useful experiments are carried out under different load and power source conditions. The collected experimental result shows that the proposal new power relay with hybrid contact is actually feasible and valuable. There is no arc occurred during the closing and breaking the DC load current process. Much more energy can be saved if the working time is taken in the closed process.

Cite this paper

Chieh-Tsung Chi. (2016) To Develop a New Arcless and Power-Saving Power Relay with Hybrid Contacts. International Journal of Control Systems and Robotics, 1, 1-10