Simulation on Arc Movement under Effects of Quenching Chamber Configuration and Magnetic Field for Low-Voltage Circuit Breaker

Mingzhe RONG
Yi WU
Qian YANG
Guangxia HU
Shengli JIA
Jianhua WANG

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E88-C    No.8    pp.1577-1583
Publication Date: 2005/08/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 10.1093/ietele/e88-c.8.1577
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Recent Development of Electro-Mechanical Devices--Selected Papers from International Session on Electro-Mechanical Devices 2004 (IS-EMD2004)--)
Category: Arc Discharge & Related Phenomena
Keyword: 
simulation,  arc movement,  low-voltage,  circuit breakers,  gas dynamics,  

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Summary: 
This paper is devoted to simulate the arc movement in the quenching chamber of the low-voltage circuit breaker. Based on a group of governing equations, a three-dimensional (3-D) arc model is built and solved by a modified commercial code. According to the simulated results, some phenomena such as a 'bulge' in front of the arc column, a tail in the rear of the arc column, arc shrinkage near the electrodes and arc movement characteristics versus different chamber configuration and external magnetic field are found, and the mechanism of the above phenomena is described in detail. Finally, in order to verify the simulation results, arc movement is investigated by hi-spec motion analyzer experimentally.