What is Relay?

Relays are the primary protection as well as switching devices in most of the control
processes or equipment. All the relays respond to one or more electrical quantities like voltage or
current such that they open or close the contacts or circuits. A relay is a switching device as it
works to isolate or change the state of an electric circuit from one state to another.

Different types of Relays and their working principles:

Classification or the types of relays depend on the function for which they are used. Some
of the categories include protective, reclosing, regulating, auxiliary and monitoring relays.
 Protective relays continuously monitor these parameters: voltage, current, and power; and
if these parameters violate from set limits they generate alarm or isolate that particular
circuit. These types of relays are used to protect equipment like motors, generators,
and transformers, and so on.
 Reclosing relays are used to connect various components and devices within the system
network, such as synchronizing process, and to restore the various devices soon after
any electrical fault vanishes, and then to connect transformers and feeders to line
network. Regulating relays are the switches that contacts such that voltage boosts up as in
the case of tap changing transformers.
 Auxiliary contacts are used in circuit breakers and other protective equipment for contact
multiplication. Monitoring relays monitors the system conditions such as direction of
power and accordingly generates the alarm. These are also called directional relays.

Different Types of Relays

Depending on the operating principle and structural features relays are of different types
such as electromagnetic relays, thermal relays, power varied relays, multi-dimensional relays,
and so on, with varied ratings, sizes and applications.

1. Electromagnetic Relays
These relays are constructed with electrical, mechanical and magnetic components, and
have operating coil and mechanical contacts. Therefore, when the coil gets activated by a supply
system, these mechanical contacts gets opened or closed. The type of supply can be AC or DC.
DC vs. AC Relays
Both AC and DC relays work on the same principle as electromagnetic induction, but the
construction is somewhat differentiated and also depends on the application for which these
relays are selected. DC relays are employed with a freewheeling diode to de-energize the coil,
and the AC relays uses laminated cores to prevent eddy current losses.
The very interesting aspect of an AC is that for every half cycle, the direction of the
current supply changes; therefore, for every cycle the coil loses its magnetism since the zero
current in every half cycle makes the relay continuously make and break the circuit. So, to
prevent this – additionally one shaded coil or another electronic circuit is placed in the AC relay
to provide magnetism in the zero current position.

Attraction Type Electromagnetic Relays

These relays can work with both AC and DC supply and attract a metal bar or a piece of
metal when power is supplied to the coil. This can be a plunger being drawn towards the
solenoid or an armature being attracted towards the poles of an electromagnet as shown in the
figure. These relays don’t have any time delays so these are used for instantaneous operation.

Induction Type Relays

These are used as protective relays in AC systems alone and are usable with DC systems.
The actuating force for contacts movement is developed by a moving conductor that may be a
disc or a cup, through the interaction of electromagnetic fluxes due to fault currents.
These are of several types like shaded pole, watt-hour and induction cup structures and are
mostly used as directional relays in power-system protection and also for high-speed switching
operation applications.

Magnetic Latching Relays

These relays use permanent magnet or parts with a high remittance to remain the
armature at the same point as the coil is electrified when the coil power source is taken away.

2. Solid State Relays

 Solid State uses solid state components to perform the switching operation without
moving any parts. Since the control energy required is much lower compared with the output
power to be controlled by this relay that results the power gain higher when compared to the
electromagnetic relays. These are of different types: reed relay coupled SSR, transformer
coupled SSR, photo-coupled SSR, and so on.
The above figure shows a photo coupled SSR where the control signal is applied by LED
and it is detected by a photo-sensitive semiconductor device. The output form this photo detector
is used to trigger the gate of TRIAC or SCR that switches the load.

3. Hybrid Relay
These relays are composed of electromagnetic relays and electronic components. Usually,
the input part contains the electronic circuitry that performs rectification and the other control
functions, and the output part include electromagnetic relay.

4. Thermal Relay
These relays are based on the effects of heat, which means – the rise in the ambient
temperature from the limit, directs the contacts to switch from one position to other. These are
mainly used in motor protection and consist of bimetallic elements like temperature sensors as
well as control elements. Thermal overload relays are the best examples of these relays.

5. Reed Relay
Reed Relays consist of a pair of magnetic strips (also called as reed) that is sealed within
a glass tube. This reed acts as both an armature and a contact blade. The magnetic field applied
to the coil is wrapped around this tube that makes these reeds move so that switching operation is
performed.
Based on dimensions, relays are differentiated as micro miniature, subminiature and
miniature relays. Also, based on the construction, these relays are classified as hermetic, sealed
and open type relays. Furthermore, depending on the load operating range, relays are of micro,
low, intermediate and high power types.
Relays are also available with different pin configurations like 3 pin, 4 pin and 5 pin
relays. The ways in which these relays are operated is shown in the below figure. Switching
contacts can be SPST, SPDT, DPST and DPDT types. Some of the relays are normally open
(NO) type and the other are normally closed (NC) types.
These are some of the different types of relays that are employed in most of the electronic as well
as electrical circuits. The information about the different types of relays serves readers’ purpose
and we hope that they will find this basic information very useful. Considering the huge
significance of relays with zvs in circuits, this particular article on them deserves its readers’
feedback, queries, suggestions and comments. Therefore, readers can post their comments here.

6. Latching Relays
A latching relay is a relay which maintains its state after being actuated, that’s how this
type of relays are also called as impulse relays or keep relays or stay relays. In some
applications, it is needed to limit power consumption and dissipation, for that kind of
applications a latching relay is best suitable. A latching relay consists of internal magnets such
that when the current is supplied to the coil, it (internal magnet) holds the contact position and
hence it requires no power to maintain its position. So even after being actuated, removal of
drive current to the coil cannot move the contact position but remains in its last position. Thus,
considerable energy is saved by these relays.
Latching relays can be made with one or two coils and these coils are responsible for the
position of the armature of the relay, hence the latching relays don’t have any default position as
shown in above figure. In one coil type relay, the armature position is determined by the
direction of current flow in the coil whereas in case of two coil type, position of the armature is
depending on the coil in which current flows. These relays can maintain their position once they
are actuated but their reset position depends on the control circuitry.
Polarized Relay
As the name indicates, these relays are very sensitive to the direction of current by
which it is energized. It is a type of DC electromagnetic relay provided with an additional
source of permanent magnetic field to move the armature of the relay. In these relays
magnetic circuit is built with permanent magnets, electromagnets and an armature.

Instead of spring force, these relays use magnetic forces to attract or repel the
armature. In this, the armature is a permanent magnet, pivoted between the pole faces
formed by an electromagnet. When the current flows through the electromagnet, it
produces a magnetic flux. Whenever the force exerted by the electromagnet exceeds
the force exerted by permanent magnet, the armature changes its position. Similarly
when the current is interrupted, the electromagnetic force is reduced to less than that of
permanent magnet and hence armature returns to its original position.

The magnetic flux Φm produced by the permanent magnet passes through the armature
branches into two parts namely Φ1 and Φ2. The flux Φ1 passes through the left working
gap of the magnet while Φ2 passes through the right working gap of the magnet. If there
is no current in the coil, due to these two fluxes armature will stay either at left or right of
the neutral position since in such magnetic system neutral is not stable.

Whenever the current supplied to the coils of the relay, an additional working magnetic
flux Φ passes through the working gap of the magnet. Due to these magnetic field
interactions, a force effect on the armature which is depends on the magnitude of the
current, initial position of the armature, polarity of the current, power of the magnet and
the value of the working gap. Depends on these parameters combination, the armature
of the relay turns to a new stable state thereby closes the right contact and hence the
relay picks up.

There are different types of polarized relays depends on the magnetic circuit
configuration. The two most popular types of these relays include differential and bridge
type relays. In differential magnetic system, the difference of two fluxes of permanent
magnet acts on the armature. In bridge type magnetic system, the field created by the
coils divided into two fluxes which have opposite signs in the working gap area but the
magnetic flux of the permanent magnet is not divided into two fluxes. For normal size
relays differential type of magnetic system is widely used.

Buchholz Relays
These relays are gas operated or actuated relays. These relays are used to detect
incipient faults (or internal faults which are minor faults initially but on the time course
these are turned into major faults). These are most widely used for transformer
protection and are accommodated in the chamber in between the transformer tank and
conservator. These are used only for oil immersed relays that are majorly employed for
power transmission and distribution systems.

The figure below shows the operating principle of Buchholz relay. When incipient faults
(or slow developing faults) occur inside the transformer, the oil level falls because of gas
accumulation. This causes the hollow float to tilt and hence the mercury contacts are
closed. These mercury contacts complete the path of the alarm circuit so that operator
knows that there is some incipient fault occurred in the transformer.

Whenever a severe fault takes place in the transformer such as short circuit of phases
or earth fault, etc., the pressure inside the tank abruptly increased due to the fast
reduce level of the oil. Thus the oil rushes towards the conductor and due to this, lower
side flap valve gets deflected. So it closes mercury switch contacts thereby trip circuit is
enabled. Thus the transformer is disconnected from the supply source.

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Overload Protection Relays

Overload protection relays are specially designed to provide the overcurrent protection
of electrical motors and circuits. These overload relays can be different types such as
fixed bimetallic strip type, electronic or interchangeable heater bimetallic, etc. If the
electric motors are overloaded, then the motors are needed to be protected from
overcurrent. For this purpose, overload sensing equipment such as heat operated relay
is used. Heat operated relay consists of a coil that heats up bimetallic strip or solder pot
melts and thus, releases the spring for operating auxiliary contacts which are in series
with the coil. The coil gets de-energized by sensing excess current in the load due to
overload. The temperature of the motor winding can be estimated using the motor
armature thermal model, electronic overload protection relay by measuring motor
current. Thus, motor can be accurately protected using overload protection relay.

Inverse Definite Minimum Time Relays (IDMT Relays)

This type of relay gives a definite-time current characteristic at higher values of the fault
current and an inverse time current characteristic at lower values of the fault current.
These are widely used for protection of distribution lines and they offer to set the limits
for current and time settings. In this type of relay, the operating time of the relay is
approximately inversely proportional to the fault current near the pickup value and
becomes constant slightly above the pickup value of the relay. This can be achieved by
using the core of the magnet which gets saturated for the current slightly greater than
the pickup current.
The pickup value the point where the actuating quantity or fault current initiates the relay
to operate is called the pickup value. The relay is called IDMT because of its
characteristic that when the actuating quantity reaches its infinity value the time doesn’t
approach zero. At lower values of the fault current it gives inverse time characteristics
while at higher values it gives definite time characteristics as shown in figure. The
operating time becomes constant from a particular value till the actuating quantity
becomes infinity which is shown in the graph (a curve is obtained, which becomes
constant).

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Differential Relays
Differential relays operate when the phasor difference of two or more similar electrical
quantities exceeds a predetermined value. A current differential relay operates when
there exists a result of comparison between the magnitude and phase difference of the
currents entering in and leaving out of the system to be protected.

Under normal operating condition, the currents entering and leaving are equal in
magnitude and phase so the relay is inoperative. But if a fault takes place in the system,
these currents are no longer equal in magnitude an phase. This type of relay is
connected in such that the difference between the current entering and current leaving
flows through the operating coil of the relay. Hence the relay coil is energized under
fault condition due to the difference quantity of the current. Thus the relay operates and
opens the circuit breaker so as to trip the circuit.
The above figure shows the principle of differential relays in which there are two CTs
connected either side of the power transformer i.e., one CT on the primary side and the
other at the secondary side of the power transformer. The relay compares the currents
on both sides and if there is any unbalance then relay tends to operate. The differential
relays can be current differential relays, voltage balance differential relays and biased
differential relays.