Study on Arc Evolution Behaviour of Breaking Short Circuit Current for a Fast Vacuum Circuit Breaker

Abstract A fast vacuum circuit breaker (FVCB), driven by an electromagnetic repulsion mechanism, has an extremely short opening time, and in coordination with the controlled switching technology contributes to breaking a short circuit current with the minimum arcing time. The objective of the paper is to determine the arc evolution behaviour of fast vacuum circuit breakers with a minimum arcing time. A 40.5 kV vacuum interrupter (VI) was used, which was equipped with a pair of CuCr50 (Cr 50 wt%) axial magnetic field (AMF) contacts. The diameters of the contact were Φ50mm, Φ58 mm and Φ65 mm respectively. The arc evolution behaviour in the drawn arc experiment was photographed by a high-speed camera through a glass envelope of the VI. The experiment results showed that an initial intense arc tended to evolve into a diffuse arc when the arcing time is larger than a critical arc diffusion time under a certain opening velocity. The critical arc diffusion time for the vacuum arc is defined as arc evolving from the instant of contact separation to an appearance of separated cathode spots. For a Φ50 mm cup-type AMF contact, the critical arc diffusion time decreases from 0.7 ms to 0.46 ms, with the increase of the opening velocity from 2.52 m/s to 4.65 m/s. What’s more, for a Φ58 mm cup-type AMF contact, the critical arc diffusion time decreases from 1.0 ms to 0.58 ms with the increase of the opening velocity from 2.52 m/s to 4.65 m/s. For a Φ65 mm cup-type AMF contact, the critical arc diffusion time decreases from 1.30 ms to 0.64 ms with the increase of the opening velocity from 2.52 m/s to 4.65 m/s. The critical arc diffusion time increases with the increase of the diameter of the contact under the same opening velocity.