ISSN:
0093-3813
Content:
Switching shunt capacitor banks is a challenging task for vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs). The objective of this article is to experimentally investigate the prestrike characteristics of single-break VCBs with cup-type axial magnetic field (AMF) contacts and spiral-type transverse magnetic field (TMF) contacts under inrush current conditions in four ways. These four aspects are: the prestrike gap probability distributions, the inrush current interruption phenomena, the prestrike electric field, and the contact erosion. The contact erosion is represented by the field enhancement factor β , which is obtained by the field emission current. The experimental results show that compared with the cup-type AMF VCB, the spiral-type TMF VCB is more effective since it can reduce 47.4% of the 50% prestrike gap, d50 , and 28.6% of the scatter in prestrike gaps, which is mainly because the spiral-type TMF VCB can effectively reduce the contact erosion caused by inrush current. The spiral-type TMF VCB can significantly reduce the occurrence probabilities of inrush current interruption. The spiral-type TMF VCB can reduce 48.6% of the 50% prestrike arc time, ta50 . The 50% prestrike electric field, Epre50, of the spiral-type TMF VCB is 125% higher than that of the cup-type AMF VCB. For the controlled switching of capacitor banks, the spiral-type TMF VCB is superior to the cup-type AMF VCB.
In:
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE transactions on plasma science, New York, NY : IEEE, 1973, 50(2022), 9, Seite 2660-2669, 0093-3813
In:
volume:50
In:
year:2022
In:
number:9
In:
pages:2660-2669
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1109/TPS.2022.3175358