In this paper, the failure mechanism of PTC heater were examined closely by failure analysis and based on it, accelerated life test were conducted. Finally, life distribution and acceleration model were established. The failure mechanism of PTC heater such as crack, increase of resistance due to heating were identified. Two acceleration factors such as temperature, humidity were chosen with two levels each and accelerated life test were done. Life distribution were identified as Weibull distribution with shape parameter 5.4 and Temperature-Humidity model was fitted as an acceleration model.

The alumina substrates that Ni electrode was printed on and the multi-layered PTCR thermistors of which composition is (Ba_0.998Ce_0.002)TiO_3 + 0.001MnCO_3 + 0.05BN were fabricated by a thick film process, and the effect of re-oxidation temperature on their resistivities and resistance jumps were investigated, respectively. Ni electroded alumina substrate and the multi-layered PTC thermistor were sintered at l,150℃ for 2 h under PO_2= 10^-6 Pa and then re-oxidized at 600∼850℃ for 20 min. With increasing the re-oxidation temperature, the room temperature resistivity increased and the resistance jump (LogR_290/R_25) decreased, which seems to be related to the oxidation of Ni electrode. The small sized chip PTC thermistor such as 2012 and 3216 exhibits a nonlinear and rectifying behavior in I-V curve but the large sized chip PTC thermistor such as 4532 and 6532 shows a linear and ohmic behavior. Also, the small sized chip PTC thermistor such as 2012 and 3216 is more dependent on the re-oxidation temperature and easy to. be oxidized in comparison with the large sized chip PTC thermistor such as 4532 and 6532. So, the re-oxidation conditions of chip PTC thermistor may be determined by considering the chip size.

PTCR ceramics of (Ba0.998Sm0.002)TiO3 + 0.001MnCO3 + xSiO2 (x=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 mol%) were fabricated by solid state method. Disk samples of diameter 5 mm and thickness about 1mm were sintered at 1,290℃ for 2 h in reduced atmosphere of 5%H2-95%N2 followed by re-oxidation at 600℃ for 30 min. in 20%O2-80%N2.and their microstructures and electrical properties were investigated with SEM and Multimeter. The color of sintered samples was strongly dependent on SiO2 content showing that the color of samples with SiO2 of 1∼2 mol% was gray but that of samples with SiO2 of 4∼6 mol% was changed from gray to blue, which seems to be related with the reduction of samples due to the oxygen vacancies created during the sintering in reduced atmosphere. SiO2 content had a great influence on the microstructure and the electrical properties. With increasing SiO2 content, the grain size of samples increased and the resistivity as well as the resistivity jump (R285/Rmin) decreased, which is considered to be attributed to the resistivity change at grain interior and grain boundary due to the fast mass transfer through SiO2 liquide phase during the sintering. Samples with 2 mol% SiO2 has the resistivity of 202 Ω cm and the resistivity jump of 3.28. It is expected that SiO2 doped BaTiO3 based PTC ceramics can be used for multilayered PTC thermistor due to the resistance to the sintering in reduced atmosphere.

0.935BaTiO3-0.065(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3+xmol%MnO2 (BBNTM-x) ceramics with 0≤x≤0.05 were fabricated with muffled sintering by a modified synthesis process. Their microstructure and enhanced positive temperature coefficient of resistivity (PTCR) characteristics were systematically investigated in order to obtain lead-free high TC PTCR thermistors. All specimens showed a perovskite structure with a tetragonal symmetry and no secondary phase was observed. Grain growth was achieved when the doped MnO2 was increased above 0.02 mol%. This is due to the effect of positive Mn ion doping as an acceptor compensating a Ba vacancy occurred by the higher donor dopant concentration of Bi3+ ion. Especially, enhanced PTCR characteristics of the extremely low ρRT of 99 Ω·㎝, PTCR jump of 5.1×10(3), α of 15.5%/℃ and high TC of 167℃ were achieved for the BBNTM-0.04 ceramics.

In this study, the effect of Nb2O5 and sintering time on the positive temperature of coefficient of resistivity (PTCR) behavior of lead free Ba0.99(Bi0.5Na0.5)0.01TiO3 (BBNT) ceramics were investigated in order to fabricate a PTC thermistor with high Tc temperature more than 140℃. In particular, BBNT ceramic doped with 0.1mol% Nb2O5 and sintered at 1350℃ for 4 h has significantly increased Curie temperature (Tc) of about 200℃, showed good PTCR behavior of room-temperature resistivity (ρrt) of 40 Ω·㎝, a high ρmax/ρmin ratio of 43.78×103 and a large resistivity temperature factor (α) of 16.1%/℃. With increasing addition of Nb2O5 content, the ρrt decreased to a minimum value of 40 Ω·㎝ at 0.1mol% Nb2O5 and the ρrt increased for x value over 0.1 mol%.

(1-x)BaTiO3-x(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3 (0.01≤x≤0.10) ceramics were fabricated with muffled sintering by a modified synthesis process. Their positive temperature coefficient of resistivity (PTCR) characteristics were investigated systematically. All specimen showed a perovskite structure with a tetragonal symmetry. Both the lattice parameter of a and c axes were slightly decreased with increasing (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3 (BNT) content. Grain growth was achieved when the incorporated BNT was increased to 6 mol% and the inhibition of grain growth is considered to be due to the appearance of Ba vacancy (V"(Ba)) in the (1-x)BaTiO3-x(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3 (0.08≤x). With 4 mol% BNT addition, room temperature resistivity decreased to 48 Ω·㎝ and a resistivity jump (ρmax/ρmin) was as high as 1.1×10(4), respectively. Curie temperature was also increased to 171˚C with increasing BNT content.