Abstract
A self-consistent simulation of anode heating by 4.5 kA vacuum arc during the half-wave of 50 Hz current with 1 m/s contact opening was carried out. The calculations were done in the framework of hybrid high current vacuum arc model, which treats ions and atoms as macroparticles with the help of particle-in-cell methods, but electron subsystem is treated as massless fluid with quasineutrality assumed. The occurrence of an anode plasma plume (similar to that found in experiments) was obtained as a result of modeling. It is shown that the energy flux of line radiation from the interelectrode plasma to the anode is a critical reason of the appearance and maintenance of the anode plume.
Highlights
High current vacuum arc (HCVA) is an arc with current in the order of several kiloamperes
The calculations were done in the framework of hybrid high current vacuum arc model, which treats ions and atoms as macroparticles with the help of particle-in-cell methods, but electron subsystem is treated as massless fluid with quasineutrality assumed
The occurrence of an anode plasma plume was obtained as a result of modeling
Summary
High current vacuum arc (HCVA) is an arc with current in the order of several kiloamperes. The main source of plasma in HCVA is multiple cathode spots [2, 3]. The bright, well defined spot appears at the anode surface. This phenomenon is known as the anode spot [4, 5]. The appearance of the anode spot significantly reduces the ability of vacuum interrupters to switch off the current. Since the characteristic times of plasma processes in the interelectrode gap are much less than a millisecond. Such calculations were carried out in [10] on the basis of MHD model [9].
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