A Reliability Assessment Method for High Speed Train Electromagnetic Relays

The condition of electromagnetic relays is crucial to the safe and normal operation of the high-speed train (HST). At present, there are no proper testing and assessment methods for the condition of electromagnetic relays. Electromagnetic relays experience aging and failure over their service time, which causes many potential security problems. To solve these problems, the failure mechanisms of electromagnetic relays are analyzed. The Fick diffusion theory and the Larson–Miller method are used to deduce the degradation models for contact resistance and closing time. Based on these models, an approach to calculate relay life is proposed. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a test platform was designed and built. The accelerated life test was carried out by using Siemens 3TH electromagnetic relays (3TH4244-OLF4, Siemens, Suzhou, China). Contact resistance and closing time were measured using a test platform. The least squares fitting was used to calculate the residual sum of squares and the unknown parameters in the degradation models with the test data. The optimal degradation model was chosen according to the fitting results. Relay life at four temperature stress levels was predicted by the optimal degradation model and failure threshold of the relays. The result indicates that the life of the electromagnetic relays at ambient temperature is 11,874 days and prediction error is about 5%, which provides important guidance for the maintenance of electromagnetic relays.