Title :
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
fDate :
12/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
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;
Journal_Title :
Components and Packaging Technologies, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TCAPT.2002.807999
