Development of Low Resistance Tungsten-clad Copper Contacts in an Arc-free Hybrid DC Circuit Breaker

摘要

The hybrid DC circuit breaker has been studied extensively due to the significant increasing of solar power plants orDC power transmission and distribution systems. Nowadays the copper contact is commonly used in the mechanical switch, whichis a part of a hybrid DC circuit breaker, since it has desirable electric conductivity. However, arc is prone to occur during currentinterruption due to the low boiling point of copper. Consequently, we proposed a new contact with higher boiling point, tungstencladcopper contact (W-clad Cu contact). The demerit of this contact is that its contact resistance is high, which results in a largepower loss, so it is necessary to reduce it. This paper shows the experimental results concerning the approach adjusting contactconditions, such as roughness and contact force, to decrease the contact resistance.