Research on uncertainty of bounce time for electromagnetic relay and its application in operating reliability estimation

The paper analyzes the uncertainty of bounce time of contacts for relay. It changes the bounce time series into symbolic series according to the threshold function given in the paper. By means of the coding symbolic series and probability statistical analysis, we propose a concept named series entropy, which is a suitable eigenvalue for temporal schema and helps to find the time-change law of uncertainty of bounce time series. The analysis indicates that series entropy of bounce time for bad contacts descend as time goes on. The law can be used to predict the operating reliability.