reclosure

Reclosure is the act or process of closing something that has been opened or released, returning it to its closed state. The term is used across different disciplines, with the precise meaning depending on the context. In technical usage, reclosure often implies restoring a system to a closed, stable condition after an interruption.

In electrical power engineering, reclosure refers to the automatic reclosing of a circuit after it has been opened by a fault. A recloser is a protective device that interrupts the fault current and then attempts to reclose the circuit after a short interval. If the transient fault has cleared, service is restored; if the fault persists, further reclosing may be limited or blocked according to the protection scheme. Reclosing improves system reliability by reducing outage times for temporary faults, but it can be configured to tolerate multiple attempts and to coordinate with fuses or sectionalizers to minimize damage and fault duration.

Beyond electric power, reclosure may describe the act of closing a valve, switch, door, or other mechanism after it was opened. In manufacturing, process control, and safety systems, the term is used more broadly to indicate the restoration of a component to its closed state following temporary opening, whether for maintenance, inspection, or emergency response. The precise interpretation is domain-specific and may be described with more exact terms such as automatic reclosing, secondary closure, or re-sealing, depending on the equipment or procedure involved.