Analysis of Instability Phenomena at Current Interruption in Vacuum Arc Discharge Compared With Silver or Copper Electrode

Abstract

Vacuum circuit breakers have an issue of instability arc current and chopping phenomena when the current is cut off from the circuit. To clarify the effect of the instability low-current vacuum arc for circuit breaker development, the instability mechanism of low-current vacuum arc for various parameters was proposed to verify consequent affecting circuit breaker capacity in this paper. This paper used the cathode spot model neglect the transition region between the collisionless sheath and collisional plasma region. The eight equations were used for solving the dependent variable of plasma parameters for both silver and copper electrode materials. The low ionization was supposed in the cathode spot model. The results showed that the changes in the work function and ion current fraction at ambient temperature did not have the main influence on the arc stability limit current both in the silver electrode and copper electrode. On the contrary, the changes in the heat conductivity at ambient temperature affecting the arc stability limit current significantly both in the silver and copper electrodes. Furthermore, the results were found out that the cathode spot can be confirmed unstable current phenomena when the current below 19 A for copper cathode and below 19.4 A for the silver cathode. These phenomena can be explained that the reversed electrons flow from the plasma side to sheath region affecting the electric field at cathode spot become negative zone; thus, the starting noise on the current trace appears before chopping current.