PARAMETRICAL STUDY OF THE ARC - MATERIAL INTERACTION INFLUENCE ON THE CIRCUIT BREAKER PERFORMANCES

摘要

The breaking devices improvement is an important research area. High temperature phenomena, creating ablation on both contact materials and walls of the breaking chamber are very complex to understand, and so to model, because of the electric break arc phenomena complexity, but also because of the breaking device complexity [1], [2]. As many parameters are involved in arc behavior understanding, the most reliable solution to determine the influence of one parameter is to realize parametrical studies, based on measurement. Breaking devices manufacturers try to carry on such studies, but they are limited by available means of diagnostic. The aim of our study is to offer a precise, reliable and powerful diagnostic tool, using magnetic measurement, enabling to know the arc shape and position with a cadence of 1 million frames per second. This tool has been used to determine the geometrical dimensions influence on the breaking device quality. The geometrical configuration influence on the thermal erosion of breaking device elements has specially been investigated. Results obtained especially show the advantages of a breaking chamber associated with a very confined volume for performance improvement of breaking devices.