Influence of axial self-magnetic field component on arcing behavior of spiral-shaped contacts

Abstract

The transverse magnetic field (TMF) contact design is commonly used in vacuum interrupters. When arcing occurs between the TMF contacts, the contact structure can create a self-induced magnetic field that drives the arc to move and rotate on the contact, and thus local overheating and severe erosion can be avoided. However, TMF contacts could also create an axial self-magnetic component, and the influence of this component on the arc behavior has not been considered to date. In this paper, five different types of Cu-Cr spiral-shaped TMF contacts with three different structures are investigated in a demountable vacuum chamber that contains a high-speed charge-coupled device video camera. It was found that the contact structure greatly influenced the arc behavior, especially in terms of arc rotation and the effective contact area, while contacts with the same slot structure but different diameters showed similar arc behavior and arc motion. The magnetic field distribution and the Lorentz force of each of the three different contact structures are simulated, and the axial self-magnetic field was first taken into consideration for investigation of the TMF contact design. It was found that contact designs that have higher axial self-magnetic field components tend to have arc columns with larger diameters and show poorer arc motion and rotation performance in the experiments.