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

663 / 2017-05-23 10:54:26

Simulation of the vacuum arcs with moving contacts

vacuum arcs

Vacuum arcs should be controlled to improve the breaking performance of vacuum circuit breakers. We have studied a numerical method to analyze arc behavior in a vacuum interrupter with axial magnetic field type contacts. Also in order to grasp the arc behavior during contact separation, we have simulated the vacuum arcs with transient method.
At the beginning of arc generation, arcs are assumed to occupy a rather small area and spread on the whole contact area with time. The arc behavior with gap distance is analyzed depending on the axial magnetic field and the arc current, which will help us compare the breaking performance of various contacts and decide the possibility of breaking currents afterwards.