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→13.3 Test Procedures for the Communications Technology
==13.3 Test Procedures for the Communications Technology==
Testing of the contact behavior in the communications technology is usually performed on the actual devices such as for example in relays. Experience has shown that the interaction between all design and functional parameters such as contact forces, relative movement, and electrical loads, are determining the failure mode. Therefore only statistical performance tests on a larger number of switching devices lead to meaningful results.
One must differentiate between static tests (for ex. contact resistance) and dynamic ones (for ex. electrical life). In certain electromechanical components and switching devices the contacts can be exposed to both, static and dynamic stresses (for ex. connectors, relays, switches, pushbuttons, circuit breakers). For statically stressed components the life expectancy is usually expressed as a time period, i.e. hours, while for dynamically stressed ones the expected functional life is defined as numbers of operations or switching cycles.
