Effect of Arcing Time on Voltage Distribution of Double-Break Vacuum Circuit Breaker During the Transient Recovery Voltage Rising Phase

Abstract

Grading capacitors are required to balance the voltage distribution of the double-break vacuum circuit breaker. However, large grading capacitors increase the magnitude and duration of the reignition current. To reduce grading capacitors, a synthetic circuit with double vacuum breaks was set up to study the effects of arcing time on voltage distribution. The voltage distribution of the upper break decreases from 61% to 52% with arcing times of two breaks decreasing from 6.6 to 3.4 ms synchronously. The experimental results demonstrate that reducing the arcing times can balance the voltage distribution during the transient recovery voltage (TRV) rising phase. The unbalance of TRV distribution can be further improved by adopting appropriate arcing times in the two breaks with grading capacitors having a capacitance of 3000 pF.