Reliability assessment for electromagnetic relay based on time parameters degradation

The traditional reliability assessment methods for electromagnetic relay (EMR) are based on censored failure-time data, which provides very little reliability information. Furthermore, this method may be unavailable in applications with few or no failures. Actually, many time parameters of electromagnetic relay, such as closing time, over-travel time provide an obvious degradation process during the life test. By testing time parameters of EMR during its life circle, this paper presents a novel reliability assessment method of EMR based on multiple time parameters degradation and multiple failure mechanism. Considering the difference of EMR degradation, regression analysis method and time series method are employed to build the degradation model of time parameters for EMR. Then, multiple degradation parameters reliability assessment model which can evaluate the reliability of all failure mechanisms is developed with stochastic theory.