Study on rapid arc quenching in protection gap based on magnetic blowing principle

Abstract

Abstract Parallel protection gap has the advantages of simple structure, good economy, and so on. It is widely used in lightning protection. However, the problem is that the arc’s self-extinguishing ability of the protection gap is poor and prone to tripping the line, hindering its further development. To address this problem, this paper proposes a method of connecting an electromagnet in series next to a protection gap and installing an arc-breaking grid at the gap. By changing the magnetic field distribution in the protective gap, while the arc is stretched, the arc is deflected to break on the arc-breaking grids, thus causing the arc to extinguish quickly. Through a finite element simulation platform, the arc simulation model of this protective gap was established based on the theory of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) approach. The results of the study show that a fast arc quenching method for parallel protection gaps based on the magnetic blowing principle can extinguish the arc within 5 ms, an 89.4 percent reduction in arc extinguishing time compared to the traditional parallel spark gap. Its arc temperature plummeted to below 2000 K in a short time, which greatly reduces the arc energy and effectively improves the arc extinguishing effect of the protection gap.