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A relay is an operated switch. It has a set of input terminals for one or more control signals, and a set of operating contact terminals. The switch may have any number of contacts in multiple contact forms, such as make contacts, break contacts, or combinations thereof.
Relays are used to control a circuit by an independent low-power signal and to control several circuits by one signal. They were first used in long-distance telegraph circuits as Repeater that transmit a refreshed copy of the incoming signal onto another circuit. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and early to perform Boolean algebra.
The traditional electromechanical relay uses an electromagnet to close or open the contacts, but relays using other operating principles have also been invented, such as in solid-state relays which use semiconductor properties for control without relying on moving parts. Relays with calibrated operating characteristics and sometimes multiple operating coils are used to protect electrical circuits from overload or faults; in modern electric power systems these functions are performed by digital instruments still called or .
Latching relays require only a single pulse of control power to operate the switch persistently. Another pulse applied to a second set of control terminals, or a pulse with opposite polarity, resets the switch, while repeated pulses of the same kind have no effects. Magnetic latching relays are useful in applications when interrupted power should not affect the circuits that the relay is controlling.
Electrical relays got their start mainly in application to . American scientist Joseph Henry is often cited to have invented a relay in 1835 in order to improve his version of the electrical telegraph, developed earlier in 1831. However, Henry never published any of these experiments and dating for his relay experiments is based solely on the words of Henry himself and his students, often decades later.
In March 1837 Edward Davy deposited a letter with the British Secretary for the Society of Arts containing his ideas for an electromagnetic relay, which, even if it was not the first, was considered more practical than previous designs, being a ‘make-and-break’ type rather than being based on the use of mercury. He did this two months before Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke filed their first patent for their telegraph system and would file a patent for the same idea a year later. (1982). 9780905118833, Johnson Matthey Plc. ISBN 9780905118833
However, an official patent was not issued until 1840 to Samuel Morse for his telegraph, which is now called a relay. The mechanism described acted as a digital amplifier, repeating the telegraph signal, and thus allowing signals to be propagated as far as desired.
The word relay appears in the context of electromagnetic operations from 1860 onwards.
When an electric current is passed through the coil it generates a magnetic field that activates the armature, and the consequent movement of the movable contact(s) either makes or breaks (depending upon construction) a connection with a fixed contact. If the set of contacts was closed when the relay was de-energized, then the movement opens the contacts and breaks the connection, and vice versa if the contacts were open. When the current to the coil is switched off, the armature is returned by a force, approximately half as strong as the magnetic force, to its relaxed position. Usually this force is provided by a spring, but gravity is also used commonly in industrial motor starters. Most relays are manufactured to operate quickly. In a low-voltage application this reduces noise; in a high voltage or current application it reduces arcing.
When the coil is energized with direct current, a flyback diode or snubber resistor is often placed across the coil to dissipate the energy from the collapsing magnetic field (back EMF) at deactivation, which would otherwise generate a voltage spike dangerous to semiconductor circuit components. Such diodes were not widely used before the application of as relay drivers, but soon became ubiquitous as early germanium transistors were easily destroyed by this surge. Some automotive relays include a diode inside the relay case. Resistors, while more durable than diodes, are less efficient at eliminating voltage spikes generated by relays and therefore not as commonly used.
If the relay is driving a large, or especially a reactive load, there may be a similar problem of surge currents around the relay output contacts. In this case a snubber circuit (a capacitor and resistor in series) across the contacts may absorb the surge. Suitably rated capacitors and the associated resistor are sold as a single packaged component for this commonplace use.
If the coil is designed to be energized with alternating current (AC), some method is used to split the flux into two out-of-phase components which add together, increasing the minimum pull on the armature during the AC cycle. Typically this is done with a small copper "shading ring" crimped around a portion of the core that creates the delayed, out-of-phase component, which holds the contacts during the zero crossings of the control voltage.
Contact materials for relays vary by application. Materials with low contact resistance may be oxidized by the air, or may tend to "stick" instead of cleanly parting when opening. Contact material may be optimized for low electrical resistance, high strength to withstand repeated operations, or high capacity to withstand the heat of an arc. Where very low resistance is required, or low thermally-induced voltages are desired, gold-plated contacts may be used, along with palladium and other non-oxidizing, semi-precious metals. Silver or silver-plated contacts are used for signal switching. Mercury-wetted relays make and break circuits using a thin, self-renewing film of liquid mercury. For higher-power relays switching many amperes, such as motor circuit contactors, contacts are made with a mixtures of silver and cadmium oxide, providing low contact resistance and high resistance to the heat of arcing. Contacts used in circuits carrying scores or hundreds of amperes may include additional structures for heat dissipation and management of the arc produced when interrupting the circuit.Ian Sinclair, Passive Components for Circuit Design, Elsevier, 2000 , pp. 161–164 Some relays have field-replaceable contacts, such as certain machine tool relays; these may be replaced when worn out, or changed between normally open and normally closed state, to allow for changes in the controlled circuit.
The National Association of Relay Manufacturers and its successor, the Relay and Switch Industry Association define 23 distinct electrical contact forms found in relays and switches.Section 1.6, Engineers' Relay Handbook, 5th ed, Relay and Switch Industry Association, Arlington, VA; 3rd ed, National Association of Relay Manufacturers, Elkhart Ind., 1980; 2nd Ed. Hayden, New York, 1966; large parts of the 5th edition are on line here . Of these, the following are commonly encountered:
The S ( single) or D ( double) designator for the pole count may be replaced with a number, indicating multiple contacts connected to a single actuator. For example, 4PDT indicates a four-pole double-throw relay that has 12 switching terminals.
EN 50005 are among applicable standards for relay terminal numbering; a typical EN 50005-compliant SPDT relay's terminals would be numbered 11, 12, 14, A1 and A2 for the C, NC, NO, and coil connections, respectively.EN 50005:1976 "Specification for low voltage switchgear and controlgear for industrial use. Terminal marking and distinctive number. General rules." (1976). In the UK published by BSI as BS 5472:1977.
DIN 72552 defines contact numbers in relays for automotive use:
These safety relays have to follow design rules and manufacturing rules that are defined in one main machinery standard EN 50205 : Relays with forcibly guided (mechanically linked) contacts. These rules for the safety design are the one defined in type B standards such as EN 13849-2 as Basic safety principles and Well-tried safety principles for machinery that applies to all machines.
Force-guided contacts by themselves can not guarantee that all contacts are in the same state, however, they do guarantee, subject to no gross mechanical fault, that no contacts are in opposite states. Otherwise, a relay with several normally open (NO) contacts may stick when energized, with some contacts closed and others still slightly open, due to mechanical tolerances. Similarly, a relay with several normally closed (NC) contacts may stick to the unenergized position, so that when energized, the circuit through one set of contacts is broken, with a marginal gap, while the other remains closed. By introducing both NO and NC contacts, or more commonly, changeover contacts, on the same relay, it then becomes possible to guarantee that if any NC contact is closed, all NO contacts are open, and conversely, if any NO contact is closed, all NC contacts are open. It is not possible to reliably ensure that any particular contact is closed, except by potentially intrusive and safety-degrading sensing of its circuit conditions, however in safety systems it is usually the NO state that is most important, and as explained above, this is reliably verifiable by detecting the closure of a contact of opposite sense.
Force-guided contact relays are made with different main contact sets, either NO, NC or changeover, and one or more auxiliary contact sets, often of reduced current or voltage rating, used for the monitoring system. Contacts may be all NO, all NC, changeover, or a mixture of these, for the monitoring contacts, so that the safety system designer can select the correct configuration for the particular application. Safety relays are used as part of an engineered safety system.
In one mechanism, two opposing coils with an over-center spring or permanent magnet hold the contacts in position after the coil is de-energized. A pulse to one coil turns the relay on, and a pulse to the opposite coil turns the relay off. This type is widely used where control is from simple switches or single-ended outputs of a control system, and such relays are found in avionics and numerous industrial applications.
Another latching type has a remanence core that retains the contacts in the operated position by the remanent magnetism in the core. This type requires a current pulse of opposite polarity to release the contacts. A variation uses a permanent magnet that produces part of the force required to close the contact; the coil supplies sufficient force to move the contact open or closed by aiding or opposing the field of the permanent magnet. A polarity controlled relay needs changeover switches or an H-bridge drive circuit to control it. The relay may be less expensive than other types, but this is partly offset by the increased costs in the external circuit.
In another type, a ratchet relay has a ratchet mechanism that holds the contacts closed after the coil is momentarily energized. A second impulse, in the same or a separate coil, releases the contacts. This type may be found in certain cars, for headlamp dipping and other functions where alternating operation on each switch actuation is needed.
A Stepping switch is a specialized kind of multi-way latching relay designed for early automatic telephone exchanges.
An earth-leakage circuit breaker includes a specialized latching relay.
Very early computers often stored bits in a magnetically latching relay, such as ferreed or the later remreed in the 1ESS switch.
Some early computers used ordinary relays as a kind of latch—they store bits in ordinary wire-spring relays or reed relays by feeding an output wire back as an input, resulting in a feedback loop or sequential circuit. Such an electrically latching relay requires continuous power to maintain state, unlike magnetically latching relays or mechanically ratcheting relays. While (self-)holding circuits are often realized with relays they can also be implemented by other means.
In computer memories, latching relays and other relays were replaced by delay-line memory, which in turn was replaced by a series of ever faster and ever smaller memory technologies.
A relay allows circuits to be switched by electrical equipment: for example, a timer circuit with a relay could switch power at a preset time. For many years relays were the standard method of controlling industrial electronic systems. A number of relays could be used together to carry out complex functions (relay logic). The principle of relay logic is based on relays which energize and de-energize associated contacts. Relay logic is the predecessor of ladder logic, which is commonly used in programmable logic controllers.
The high speed of switching action of the mercury-wetted relay is a notable advantage. The mercury globules on each contact coalesce, and the current rise time through the contacts is generally considered to be a few picoseconds. However, in a practical circuit it may be limited by the inductance of the contacts and wiring. It was quite common, before restrictions on the use of mercury, to use a mercury-wetted relay in the laboratory as a convenient means of generating fast rise time pulses, however although the rise time may be picoseconds, the exact timing of the event is, like all other types of relay, subject to considerable jitter, possibly milliseconds, due to mechanical variations.
The same coalescence process causes another effect, which is a nuisance in some applications. The contact resistance is not stable immediately after contact closure, and drifts, mostly downwards, for several seconds after closure, the change perhaps being 0.5 ohm.
This thermal protection operates relatively slowly allowing the motor to draw higher starting currents before the Protective relay will trip. Where the overload relay is exposed to the same ambient temperature as the motor, a useful though crude compensation for motor ambient temperature is provided.
The other common overload protection system uses an electromagnet coil in series with the motor circuit that directly operates contacts. This is similar to a control relay but requires a rather high fault current to operate the contacts. To prevent short over current spikes from causing nuisance triggering the armature movement is damped with a dashpot. The thermal and magnetic overload detections are typically used together in a motor protection relay.
Electronic overload protection relays measure motor current and can estimate motor winding temperature using a "thermal model" of the motor armature system that can be set to provide more accurate motor protection. Some motor protection relays include temperature detector inputs for direct measurement from a thermocouple or resistance thermometer sensor embedded in the winding.
Reed relays can switch faster than larger relays and require very little power from the control circuit. However, they have relatively low switching current and voltage ratings. Though rare, the reeds can become magnetized over time, which makes them stick "on", even when no current is present; changing the orientation of the reeds or degaussing the switch with respect to the solenoid's magnetic field can resolve this problem.
Sealed contacts with mercury-wetted contacts have longer operating lives and less contact chatter than any other kind of relay.
Some relays are constructed with a kind of "shock absorber" mechanism attached to the armature, which prevents immediate, full motion when the coil is either energized or de-energized. This addition gives the relay the property of time-delay actuation. Time-delay relays can be constructed to delay armature motion on coil energization, de-energization, or both.
Time-delay relay contacts must be specified not only as either normally open or normally closed, but whether the delay operates in the direction of closing or in the direction of opening. The following is a description of the four basic types of time-delay relay contacts.
First, we have the normally open, timed-closed (NOTC) contact. This type of contact is normally open when the coil is unpowered (de-energized). The contact is closed by the application of power to the relay coil, but only after the coil has been continuously powered for the specified amount of time. In other words, the direction of the contact's motion (either to close or to open) is identical to a regular NO contact, but there is a delay in closing direction. Because the delay occurs in the direction of coil energization, this type of contact is alternatively known as a normally open, on-delay.
Electromechanical switching systems including Strowger switch and Crossbar switch telephone exchanges made extensive use of relays in ancillary control circuits. The Relay Automatic Telephone Company also manufactured telephone exchanges based solely on relay switching techniques designed by Gotthilf Ansgarius Betulander. The first public relay based telephone exchange in the UK was installed in Fleetwood on 15 July 1922 and remained in service until 1959.
The use of relays for the logical control of complex switching systems like telephone exchanges was studied by Claude Shannon, who formalized the application of Boolean algebra to relay circuit design in A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits. Relays can perform the basic operations of Boolean combinatorial logic. For example, the Boolean AND function is realised by connecting normally open relay contacts in series, the OR function by connecting normally open contacts in parallel. Inversion of a logical input can be done with a normally closed contact. Relays were used for control of automated systems for machine tools and production lines. The Ladder programming language is often used for designing relay logic networks.
Early electro-mechanical computers such as the ARRA, Harvard Mark II, Zuse Z2, and Zuse Z3 used relays for logic and working registers. However, electronic devices proved faster and easier to use.
Relays are much more resistant than semiconductors to nuclear radiation, so they are widely used in safety-critical logic, such as the control panels of radioactive waste-handling machinery. Electromechanical are used to detect overload and other faults on electrical lines by opening and closing .
Since rail signal circuits must be highly reliable, special techniques are used to detect and prevent failures in the relay system. To protect against false feeds, double switching relay contacts are often used on both the positive and negative side of a circuit, so that two false feeds are needed to cause a false signal. Not all relay circuits can be proved so there is reliance on construction features such as carbon to silver contacts to resist lightning induced contact welding and to provide AC immunity.
are also used in some instances with railway signalling, especially where only a single contact is to be switched.
As with any switch, the contact current (unrelated to the coil current) must not exceed a given value to avoid damage. In high-inductance circuits such as electric motor, other issues must be addressed. When an inductance is connected to a power source, an inrush current larger than the steady-state current exists. When the circuit is broken, the current cannot change instantaneously, which creates a potentially damaging arc across the separating contacts.
Consequently, for relays used to control inductive loads, we must specify the maximum current that may flow through the relay contacts when it actuates, the make rating; the continuous rating; and the break rating. The make rating may be several times larger than the continuous rating, which is larger than the break rating.
Inside the Number One Electronic Switching System (1ESS) crossbar switch and certain other high-reliability designs, the reed switches are always switched "dry" (without load) to avoid that problem, leading to much longer contact life.
Without adequate contact protection, the occurrence of Electric arc causes significant degradation of the contacts, which suffer significant and visible damage. Every time the relay contacts open or close under load, an electrical arc can occur between the contacts of the relay, either a break arc (when opening), or a make / bounce arc (when closing). In many situations, the break arc is more energetic and thus more destructive, in particular with inductive loads, but this can be mitigated by bridging the contacts with a snubber circuit. The inrush current of tungsten filament incandescent lamps is typically ten times the normal operating current. Thus, relays intended for tungsten loads may use special contact composition, or the relay may have lower contact ratings for tungsten loads than for purely resistive loads.
An electrical arc across relay contacts can be very hot — thousands of degrees Fahrenheit — causing the metal on the contact surfaces to melt, pool, and migrate with the current. The extremely high temperature of the arc splits the surrounding gas molecules, creating ozone, carbon monoxide, and other compounds. Over time, the arc energy slowly destroys the contact metal, causing some material to escape into the air as fine particulate matter. This action causes the material in the contacts to degrade and coordination, resulting in device failure. This contact degradation drastically limits the overall life of a relay to a range of about 10,000 to 100,000 operations, a level far below the mechanical life of the device, which can be in excess of 20 million operations.
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