Abstract
In low voltage circuit breaker (LVCB) apparatus, a current limitation is performed by increasing the arc voltage. This increase is mainly realized in the splitters plates of the arc chamber by additional drop voltages due to anode and cathode sheaths regions. The consideration of the voltage drops near-electrodes regions is so one of the most important mechanism to improve the description of the arc behavior in LVCB. In this paper, the arc voltage evolution has been studied by experimental and simulation by considering a simple geometry constituted by two rails runner with one or two splitters plates. One magneto hydrodynamic model in three dimensions (3D) was developed to simulate the arc motion and the arc splitting process. In order to compare with the model results, experimental tests have been carried out.
Highlights
The principle of low voltage circuit breaker (LVCB) consists to create a current limitation by increasing the arc voltage
The consideration of the voltage drops near-electrodes regions is so one of the most important mechanism to improve the description of the arc behavior in LVCB
The arc voltage evolution has been studied by experimental and simulation by considering a simple geometry constituted by two rails runner with one or two splitters plates
Summary
The principle of LVCB consists to create a current limitation by increasing the arc voltage. The most theoretical approach studied and applied in LVCB is the one proposed by Lindmayer [2] This method allows considering an additional drop voltage through the resistivity in the layers. Considering a nonlinear permeability of ferromagnetic material’s they focus their studies on the influence of eddy currents [9] and on the influence of metal vapors coming from iron splitter plate erosion [10] In those studies, the cathode voltage was treated by U-J curves and the anode arc root description was determinedwith the LTE-diffusion model of Lowke and Tanaka [11]. The studies were devoted to the influence of vent aperture size on re-ignition and arcing phenomena They proposed a modified method to consider the voltage due to the sheath regions. For the model we have implemented the Lindmayer approach and used the same geometries of Iturregi et al [17]
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