4th International Conference on Electric Power Equipment– Switching Technology (ICEPE-2017)

456 / 2017-05-04 17:16:09

Experimental investigation of triggered vacuum arc behavior under different composite contacts

vacuum arc,4319

The rapid development of power system put forward higher requirements for the breaking performance of vacuum breaker. Using magnetic fields to control the vacuum arc is a major way to improve the breaking capacity of vacuum chamber. Besides the single transverse magnetic field (TMF) and single axial magnetic field (AMF), new type of composite contact structure has been put forward to control the vacuum arc in recent years. In this paper, the dynamics of arc column was investigated experimentally in vacuum chamber. The arc evolution was captured by an ultrafast digital video camera, and at the same time th e arc current and arc voltage wave was recorded. The experiment was conducted under current ranging from 5kA to 20kA root mean square (rms) and 10mm of gap distance. By comparing the experiment results of different contact structures at every current level, the effect of the contact structure on the contact breaking capacity is investigated.