Investigation on the interrupting test of mechanical HVDC vacuum circuit breaker

Abstract

High-voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit breaker with rapid fault clearing is an important equipment for protecting DC transmission system. The mechanical vacuum circuit breaker based on artificial current zero (ACZ) is excellent to interrupt the large current. A prototype of mechanical HVDC circuit breaker based on ACZ is simulated by Matlab in this paper. The main circuit breaker and the commutation switch are composed of two vacuum interrupters connected in series. Both of them are operated by electromagnetic repulsion actuators. The commutation process of the circuit breaker is analyzed in detail. Furthermore, a mechanical HVDC circuit breaker module based on ACZ has been tested to interrupt the current, which is provided by a LC circuit. The corresponding waveform of the circuit breaker is obtained and analyzed.