Towards the control of contact bounce

Author

Davies, T.S. ; Nouri, H. ; Britton, F.

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng., Univ. of the West of England, Bristol, UK

fYear

1995

fDate

2-4 Oct. 1995

Firstpage

289

Lastpage

294

Abstract

This paper presents studies into the reduction of electrical contact bounce for both a commercial contactor and a contactor model from a new approach. The new approach is based on the reduction of the kinetic energy of the moving contact. This is achieved by controlling the strength of the field flux by timing coil energisation periods. A set of data is obtained from the measurement of contact bounces for a current of 10 A DC and an operating voltage of 40 volts for conditions with and without the control circuit. The results show that bounce duration and the number of bounces in the latter case are 2-3 times greater. SEM photographs of the anode and cathode electrodes show with an uncontrolled coil, contacts suffer higher arc erosion losses.

Keywords

coils; contactors; electric current control; electrical contacts; magnetic flux; magnetic variables control; power electronics; wear; 10 A; 40 V; anode electrode; arc erosion losses; bounce duration; cathode electrode; commercial contactor; contact bounce control; contactor model; electrical contact; field flux strength control; kinetic energy reduction; moving contact; switch; timing coil energisation periods; Anodes; Cathodes; Circuits; Coils; Contacts; Current measurement; Electrodes; Kinetic energy; Timing; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical Contacts, 1995., Proceedings of the Forty-First IEEE Holm Conference on

Conference_Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Print_ISBN

0-7803-2728-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HOLM.1995.482884

Filename

482884