Analysis of Arc Characteristics for Improvement of Power Protection Device Performance

Abstract

Power protection devices such as gas circuit breaker and current limiting fuse are key component for safety usage of electric system. During fault current breaking process high temperature arc can be formed inside these devices. The arc breaking is neccessary to achieve current interruption. High temperature gas properties of arc is very important factor to simulate the arc breaking process and to design the protection device. This paper briefly introduces calculation procedure of gas properties and discuss the importance of gas property analysis using the arc inside the limiting fuse as typical example. In addition, it is also introduced the relationship between gas property analysis and the quentum chemical calculation as recent trends.