Electronic circuit breaker with physical open-contact construction and fail-safe protection with disabling feature

A circuit breaker comprising:

• a pair of main contacts movable with respect to each other between a closed position wherein a line terminal and a load terminal are in electrical communication with each other via a main power circuit, and an open position wherein the line terminal and the load terminal are electrically isolated from each other;
• a primary trip coil operably connected to at least one of said pair of main contacts, said primary trip coil being adapted, upon activation, to cause said pair of main contacts to move from the closed position to the open position, thereby tripping said circuit breaker;
• a secondary trip coil operably connected to at least one of said pair of main contacts, said secondary trip coil being adapted, upon activation, to cause said pair of main contacts to move from the closed position to the open position, thereby tripping said circuit breaker;
• a monitoring circuit monitoring operation of the circuit breaker;
• said monitoring circuit being electrically connected to said primary trip coil such that said monitoring circuit provides power to said primary trip coil when a determination is made that said circuit breaker is not operating within acceptable trip parameters, thereby causing activation of said primary trip coil and tripping of the circuit breaker;
• a normally closed relay having a relay activating circuit and a switching circuit, the switching circuit defaulting to an on state, but being switchable to an off state when activating power is supplied to the relay activating circuit, the switching circuit automatically returning to the on state when activating power to the relay activating circuit is interrupted;
• wherein the switching circuit of said normally closed relay is electrically connected to said secondary trip coil, such that the switching circuit of said normally closed relay provides power to said secondary trip coil when the switching circuit is in the on state, thereby causing activation of said secondary trip coil and tripping of the circuit breaker, but does not provide power to said secondary trip coil when the switching circuit is in the off state;
• and
• wherein said monitoring circuit is electrically connected to the relay activating circuit of the normally closed relay, said monitoring circuit supplying activating power to the relay activating circuit so long as a determination is made that said circuit breaker is operating within acceptable disable parameters, and ceasing to supply activating power to the relay activating circuit, thereby tripping said circuit breaker, when either (i) said monitoring circuit determines that said circuit breaker is not operating within the acceptable disable parameters, or (ii) said monitoring circuit becomes inoperable.