Development of silver zinc oxide for general-purpose relays

Author

Schoepf, Thomas J. ; Behrens, Volker ; Honig, Thomas ; Kraus, Andreas

Author_Institution

Tyco Electron. EC, Berlin, Germany

Volume

25

Issue

4

fYear

2002

fDate

12/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

656

Lastpage

662

Abstract

The switching behavior of silver cadmium oxide (Ag/CdO), silver tin oxide (Ag/SnO₂) and silver iron oxide (Ag/Fe₂O₃) contact materials is compared to silver zinc oxide (Ag/ZnO) materials having different amounts of additives. Endurance tests were performed in a commercial general-purpose relay, subjected to resistive, inductive and inrush current loads. Results showed the performance of Ag/ZnO to be significantly dependent on the amount of additives and their grain size. The optimum Ag/ZnO was found to be equivalent or superior to other silver metal oxides depending on the applied load. Thus a substitution of Ag/CdO by an environmentally harmless Ag/ZnO material is possible.

Keywords

electrical contacts; grain size; relays; silver; switching; zinc compounds; Ag-CdO; Ag-Fe₂O₃; Ag-SnO₂; Ag-ZnO; CdO; Fe₂O₃; SnO₂; ZnO; additives; contact materials; endurance tests; environmentally harmless material; general-purpose relays; grain size; switching behavior; Additives; Cadmium compounds; Iron; Performance evaluation; Relays; Silver; Surges; Testing; Tin; Zinc oxide;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Components and Packaging Technologies, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1521-3331

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TCAPT.2002.807999

Filename

1178771