Type Of Circuit Breaker Research Articles

Magnetic Sensor Array for Electric Arc Reconstruction in Circuit Breakers.

Noninvasive imaging of circuit breakers under short-circuit testing is addressed by recording the magnetic field produced over an array of external sensors and by solving an inverse problem to identify the causing current distribution. The temporal and spatial resolution of the sensing chain are studied and implemented in a physical set-up. A wire model is adopted to describe electrical current distribution. Additionally, the simpler, more direct approach to evaluating the passage of electric current in front of sensors is proposed. The dynamics of suitable approximating models of the electric arc that forms across contacts is obtained and agrees with multi-physical simulations and with experimental time histories of current and voltage. The two methods are flexible and allow the analysis of different types of circuit breakers.

Conceptional design for a universal HVDC-HVAC vacuum-interrupter-based circuit breaker

Modern power systems high voltage transmission systems either HVDC or HVAC has mandated the presence of two types of circuit breakers (CB), HVAC-CB and HVDC-CB. That required two different production lines, higher costs and more complicated manufacturing process. A solution is proposed in this paper which is a concept design for a universal HVCB (UHVCB) that is applicable to both HVDC and HVAC system. Such a concept would allow a faster, easier production and more economical unit cost for CBs that would benefit the entire industry from manufacturers to utilities. The design of HVDC-CB was used as the foundation the proposed UHVCB such that L–C branches are used. The UHVCB was tested in both HVAC and HVDC transmission systems. The results showed the reliable performance of UHVCB in both systems. The recorded transient recovery voltage (TRV) was reduced from 750 to 430 kV when UHVCB was used instead of conventional HVCB. The testing included both technical and economic aspects. The performance of the UHVCB was tested by varying the parameters for L–C shunt branches in both systems. That included varying the value of L in range 0.3–1 mH and 10–30 µF for C. The most important conclusion from this paper that a UHVCB that is applicable in HVDC and HVAC systems is achievable and this paper is only an initial step in achieving this goal.

Methodology for Circuit Breaker Contact Diagnosis through Dynamic Resistance Measurements and Fuzzy-Logic-Based Analysis

This paper presents a methodology capable of measuring, processing, and extracting contact resistance parameters that enable the identification of the contact degradation level inside arc extinction chambers in medium- and high-voltage circuit breakers (CB). To determine the contact degradation level, an algorithm was developed to extract the characteristic parameters from the results of dynamic resistance measurement (DRM). To analyze the dataset parameters, this work employs the combination of different statistical tools, such as boxplots and fuzzy logic, enabling the evaluation to be conducted without the subjectivity inherent in human decision. Therefore, a more objective and reliable diagnosis could be achieved. The DRM tests were performed on two types of minimum-oil CB (MOCB), 800 A/15 kV/12.5 kA (CB-A) and 2000 A/72.5 kV/31.5 kA (CB-B and CB-C). For CB-A and CB-B, three contacts were utilized for each CB, with significant contact degradation. For CB-C, a single contact was employed without significant degradation. The DRM curves of the CB-C contact were used as the reference for evaluation of the CB-B contacts. For this purpose, a new DRM system was developed. The proposed methodology can be defined as a complement for other diagnostic techniques, serving as a non-subjective asset management tool, supporting decisions regarding equipment interventions.

The energy dissipation topology and characteristics of GaInSn liquid metal and ZnO resistors based on high-voltage DC circuit breakers

High voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit breakers play a very crucial role in HVDC transmission systems. Energy dissipation circuit branches are the main part of the HVDC breaker. The volume and size of energy dissipation branches are the bottlenecks of the HVDC breaker, and the existing energy dissipation schemes can not meet the lightweight requirements. In this work, a combined energy dissipation scheme based on gallium indium tin (GaInSn) liquid metal and ZnO resistors is proposed for the energy dissipation branch of a circuit breaker. Firstly, the self-shrinking of GaInSn liquid metal mechanism is analyzed and the energy dissipation characteristics at different stages are investigated. The variation patterns of short circuit current, arc voltage, resistance and other parameters in the process of liquid metal arcing and energy dissipation are obtained. Secondly, the circuit model of liquid metal in arcing and energy dissipation process is established. The equivalent nonlinear time-varying conductance of the arcing process of the liquid metal dissipative element is simulated by combining the volt-ampere characteristic curves of the liquid metal dissipative module. Finally, the topology of energy dissipation circuit branches combined by GaInSn liquid metal and ZnO resistors is proposed. At the same time, the HVDC breaker model combined by a hybrid DC circuit breaker and energy dissipation circuit branches is constructed. The energy dissipation ratio and distribution law of GaInSn liquid metal and ZnO resistors in the composite type of circuit breaker are verified. The composite dissipation improves the overall energy dissipation density of the circuit breaker compared to the conventional ZnO resistors energy dissipation.

Investigation on the fault monitoring of high-voltage circuit breaker using improved deep learning.

Mechanical faults are the main causes of abnormal opening, refusal operation, or malfunction of high-voltage circuit breakers. Accurately assessing the operational condition of high-voltage circuit breakers and delivering fault evaluations is essential for the power grid's safety and reliability. This article develops a circuit breaker fault monitoring device, which diagnoses the mechanical faults of the circuit breaker by monitoring the vibration information data. At the same time, the article adopts an improved deep learning method to train vibration information of high-voltage circuit breakers, and based on this, a systematic research method is employed to identify circuit breaker faults. Firstly, vibration information data of high-voltage circuit breakers is obtained through monitoring devices, this vibration data is then trained using deep learning methods to extract features corresponding to various fault types. Secondly, using the extracted features, circuit breaker faults are classified and recognized with a systematic analysis of the progression traits across various fault categories. Finally, the circuit breaker's fault type is ascertained by comparing the test set's characteristics with those of the training set, using the vibration data. The experimental results show that for the same type of circuit breaker, the accuracy of this method is over 95%, providing a more efficient, intuitive, and practical method for online diagnosis and fault warning of high-voltage circuit breakers.

A fuse‐based DC circuit breaker with vacuum interrupter enhanced by an external transverse magnetic field

AbstractDue to the increasing power system capacity, the interruption of large fault currents has gradually become a major challenge in power systems. At the moment, such currents are interrupted mainly via circuit breakers based on the method of active current commutation. However, these types of circuit breakers tend to be costly and oversized. One possible alternative—a fuse‐based circuit breaker with current commutation process enhanced by an external transverse magnetic field (ETMF)—is proposed by the authors. Its main advantage lies in the fast current commutation achieved by an ETMF‐enhanced three‐stage increase of the vacuum arc voltage. The study of the current commutation process is mainly represented by the authors, and the influencing factors of the current commutation—contact opening speed and ETMF current—are discussed. At last, the proposed circuit breaker is verified by an experiment, whose results show that a short‐circuit current of 42 kA can be interrupted within just 2 ms.

Research on remote emergency control breaking device for trolley type circuit breaker switchgear

High-voltage transmission and distribution lines use circuit breaker switchgear for stopping and feeding operations. Therefore, if abnormal emergencies in circuit breaker shutdown and transmission, it is urgent to carry out remote control switching to solve the problem that the circuit breaker cannot be operated with power when the remote control fails. This paper develops a trolley type circuit breaker switchgear remote emergency control shunting device, which can remotely shunt the circuit breakers on the switchgear and sink control cabinet manually in situ. And we also discusses the hardware and software design principle as well as the advantage analysis to ensure the personal safety of the operators on site and provide reference for improving the safety, economy, flexibility and reliability of the power grid.

An Innovative Method for E2 Electrical Endurance Feasibility Study of Circuit Breakers

An E2 class(also known as extended electrical endurance) circuit breaker is designed such that it does not require maintenance of the interrupting parts during its expected operating life. Normally, life expectancy of the design is higher than the expected operating life. Although, it is not a mandatory type test as per internationalstandards, the customer may demand this test duty in addition to the required type test series. An E2 test duty is a highly time consuming and an extremely expensive test. In view of this, an innovative calculation procedure has been developed utilizing the outcome of the cleared type/development test. This will not only save time significantly but will also serve as sufficient proof for performance. Simulations are done only for SF6 circuit breakers and results are presented for both puffer and self-blast type circuit breaker. In order to prove the robustness of the calculation method, simulations have been performed for different frequencies (50 Hz and 60 Hz), rated voltages and short circuit current. The simulation results have been validated by means of testing and are found to be in good agreement with the test results. Further, the calculation procedure can be extended to circuit breakers having different gases/gas mixtures.

Transients Caused by Sequential Circuit Breaker Tripping Issued by Busbar Protection

A study of transients in a high voltage substation 400/110 kV is presented in the paper. An analysis was carried out after a fault on the 110 kV busbar, which caused severe damage in the substation. Investigation was focused on a time frame of several sequential circuit breaker trippings. A first step of the study was collection of data from the primary and secondary system in the substation and the control centre. After numerous analyses of data an attempt was made to construct a precision model, which could be used in the computation. Appropriate models were developed for circuit breakers, voltage (potential) and current metering transformers, power transformers, surge arresters, overhead lines and an equivalent grid. The components of the power system can be modelled for the very particular purpose, which means that a different frequency model should be used and each element in this analysis has a specific frequency response. An attempt was made at very detailed modelling of a power transformer, air blast and SF6 circuit breakers. Computed results of fault currents were compared with measurements captured by the disturbance recorders in the field, mainly in differential numerical relays. Different switching schemes and different tripping sequences of several 110 kV circuit breakers were analysed with a constructed model in the millisecond range. Models of circuit breaker with different types of media, air blast and SF6 gas were used in the cases investigated. Modelling of the circuit breakers’ electrical arc was an important item in all cases in order to take into account the interaction between electrical arc and circuit current during the process of current interruption. The Schwarz/Avdonin equation is applied to model the dynamic behaviour of an electric arc. The fault studied was accompanied by a large short circuit current. For this particular case two types of circuit breaker, air blast and SF 6 were modelled. An important conclusion from those analyses was that sequential tripping of several circuit breakers does not cause superposition of overvoltages, because interruption the current happens when it is passing through the zero. Even the record from the substation and the disturbances recorder proves that each particular circuit breaker was successfully opened. On that basis, focus was put only on the final opening of the breaker and its arc extinction. The conclusion can be drawn that such a substation fault should have no influence on excessive overvoltages that can threaten the insulation of components in the substation.

Study and Analysis of Different Types of Circuit Breaker

Circuit breakers play an important role in an electrical system performance in terms of system safety, control, maintenance and cost. In some cases, the conventional mechanical circuit breakers (MCB) may be too slow for the electrical network to operate within the desired safety limits. Besides their other limitations, the MCB also forces the network elements to be rated much higher. The uses of power semiconductor devices to overcome some of their limitations are discussed in this paper. These usages are in terms of solid state circuit breaker (SCB) and hybrid circuit breaker (HCB) concepts. This paper summarizes and reviews the various circuits of SCB and HCB available in the literature. The relevant simulation results for some example circuits have also been presented in this paper. This study will provide a useful framework and point of reference for the future development of HCB and SCB technologies. The breaker can not only open a circuit in response to a current spike, but can also react to a sustained moderate current draw, just above its rated current. Operation of the circuit breaker is simple, but utilizes complex mechanisms. Essentially there are to main internal mechanisms; the trigger and the switch. The trigger is the device that senses the abnormal current load. A sharp spike in current will cause a magnetic field to form in the trigger, releasing the switch. A slightly elevated, but more constant current draw through the breaker will cause the bi-metal composition of the trigger mechanism to deflect in an arc like manner, which is also capable of releasing the switch. The circuit breaker's best point is that the device is effective and compact. The switch can be set to open or closed from the outside of the breaker's case, but can only be set to the tripped position internally, as a results of the trigger mechanism. Once the breaker has been tripped internally, it must be reset externally by switching it off, and then back on. The features enable the breaker to do several jobs at once, eliminating the need for multiple elements in the circuit. For example, it provides the user with an easily assessable on/off switch, fault protection against current spike, and fault protection against heavy current draw. On the other hand it is not 100% effective and must also be manually reset which can be problematic if it is dark and no lights are available with which to see the fuse box. Another bad point is that the circuit breaker has many moving parts, which complicates construction. Simpler or fewer parts might drive cost down and make manufacturing more efficient.

Оценка надежности выключателей в схемах распределительных устройств с различной топологией

The article discusses issues related to assessing the reliability of high-voltage circuit breakers in switchgear schemes with different topology of their design. A generalized formula is presented, using which it is possible to carry out calculations and further assessment of the failure flow parameter versus the switchgear scheme in which the circuit breaker is installed. To identify topological features, the standard switchgear schemes presented in the regulatory documents are analyzed. Five main types of circuit topologies and types of circuit breakers have been identified depending on the type of switched connections. For carrying out comparative calculations, one typical option was selected for each type of circuit topology. The distribution of circuit breakers by types in these schemes is presented. Calculations of the circuit breaker failure rates in schemes with the same initial data and with breaking down by types are carried out. Conclusions on the extent to which various types of schemes influence the reliability of high-voltage circuit breakers both as a whole and separately, depending on the type of switched connection are presented.

Mechanical Fault Diagnosis of High Voltage Circuit Breaker based on Improved GSO-SVM Algorithm

The vibration signal generated by the transmission and impact of mechanical components of circuit breaker has chaotic performances, which is difficult to be analysed by conventional signal processing methods. The phase space reconstruction of vibration signal is worked on, and the signal reconstruction parameters are calculated by mutual information method and Cao algorithm respectively. The vibration signal is reconstructed into a high-dimensional space, and its permutation entropy is calculated as a feature vector. Support vector machine (SVM) is used to identify the failure type of circuit breaker, and PSO improved GSA hybrid algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of SVM so as to obtain high recognition accuracy. The experiment is carried out with the measured vibration signal of the typical operation state of the circuit breaker. The results show that the characteristics of circuit breaker vibration signals can be extracted accurately with the combination of phase space reconstruction and permutation entropy. By using PSO-GSA-SVM, the fault types of circuit breakers can be identified quickly and effectively, and the problems of path distortion, energy leakage and mode overlap of existing diagnosis methods can be solved.

An Intelligent Fault Diagnosis Method for CNN-SVM Circuit Breaker Based on Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization

In order to make use of fewer fault data samples to diagnose the main fault types of circuit breakers accurately in real time, an intelligent fault diagnosis method for circuit breakers based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and quantum particle swarm optimization (QPSO) is proposed. Firstly, the key features of the circuit breaker operational signal are extracted through the CNN model, and the extracted feature vectors are input into the support vector machine (SVM) for fault diagnosis. In order to improve the diagnostic performance, this paper uses QPSO algorithm to optimize the parameters of the classifier, it effectively solves the local optimal problem. The experimental results show that the method presented in this paper has achieved good results in fault diagnosis of circuit breakers, and the accuracy of diagnosis is up to 100%, which highlights the superiority of this method.

Analysis of Suspended Potential Discharge Defects by SF6 Decomposition Products

The type and content of SF6 decomposition products are directly related to the type, location and degree of fault. Based on the analysis of the abnormal SF6 gas decomposition product content and discharge type of 126kV Porcelain Column type circuit breaker, the potential fault of the circuit breaker is judged to be suspension potential discharge fault. After disassembling the circuit breaker, it is found that the abnormal phase of the insulation rod is deformed, the pin become thin, and there are solid decomposition products, the sulfides and fluoride, which are mainly composed of iron, aluminum, chromium and manganese, further confirm that the potential fault of the circuit breaker is suspension potential discharge fault. The forming process and reaction mechanism of the suspended potential discharge fault are analyzed. Once the fault occurs, its function will promote the development of the fault. The influence of the suspension potential discharge fault on the performance of the circuit breaker is also analyzed. When the suspension potential discharge fault exists, it will cause the abnormality and even affect the normal operation of the circuit breake.

Gate Drive Controller for Low Voltage DC Hybrid Circuit Breaker

With the advent of direct current (DC) loads such as LED lighting, IT equipment, electric vehicles, and DC powers generated from renewable energy sources, low voltage DC (LVDC) distribution system is becoming a hot issue. One of the hurdles in the LVDC distribution system is arc flash at the contact points that occurs during the circuit is opening. Unlike alternating current, direct current has no zero points and sustains constantly. Therefore, there is a risk of electric fire due to continuous generating arcs when the load current is interrupted with an existing electrical contact type circuit breaker. Recently, the concept of a hybrid circuit breaker that takes advantage of traditional electrical contact type switch and the arcless semiconductor switch has been proposed, but how to cooperatively operate the two switches has become an issue. This paper analyzes the principle of a hybrid circuit breaker for blocking LVDC current and proposes a gate drive controller for it. Through 400V class LVDC cutoff test, the operation of the proposed hybrid circuit breaker is verified and the characteristics are analyzed.

A review study on various types of circuit breaker and its application

The generation, transmission, distribution, and substation are all parts of the power system. All power system components need appropriate protection devices as part of the protection system to safeguard the system in the event of a failure. The circuit breaker has been chosen as one of the protective devices in many applications in this article. Oil circuit breakers (OCB), air circuit breakers (ACB), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) circuit breakers, vacuum circuit breakers, and DC breakers (hybrid DC breaker and solid-state DC breaker) are among the circuit breakers discussed in this article. Normally, the failure disrupts or damages the systems or circuits. The kind of faults and causes of faults must be understood in order to install a protective system in the system or circuit. The substation is required to regulate the voltage transferred at high voltage from the producing station in order to deliver the appropriate voltage to the consumer. A substation must also include a protection system.

A Resonant Hybrid DC Circuit Breaker for Multi-Terminal HVDC Systems

High-voltage direct current (DC) transmission systems and multi-terminal direct current transmission systems are attracting attention for expanding the grid to promote introduction of renewable energy. Fault clearing in DC systems is difficult because there is no zero point of current. Hybrid circuit breakers are suitable for fault clearing in DC systems. Conventional hybrid circuit breakers have a hard-switching path that damages the switch. Hard switching damages the device and produces emissions due to harmonic noise. A novel resonant hybrid DC circuit breaker is proposed in this paper. The proposed circuit breaker reduces the damage to the switching device using soft switching due to the current zero point. The proposed circuit breaker is compared with conventional hybrid circuit breakers using numerical simulations. Interruption times and switching types of circuit breakers were compared. The simulation results of the fault clearing characteristics of the proposed breakers show that the proposed breakers have sufficient performance and are capable of stable reconnections in multi-terminal direct current transmission systems.

Sistem Kendali On/Off Circuit Breaker 150 kV AD20 Tipe 8DN2 di PT. Krakatau Daya Listrik

In the transmission and distribution system at PT. Krakatau Daya Listrik there is a security system created. In this case Circuit Breaker (CB), which is a security installation of the electricity network. CB that is used is GIS (Gas Insulated Switchgear) type where CB uses SF6 gas (Sulfurhexaflouride) as an insulating medium to extinguish the arc. This research itself aims to understand how the 150 kV GIS AD20 On / Off Circuit Breaker process control system at PT. Krakatau Daya Listrik and how the work processes, instrumentation, advantages and disadvantages and maintenance of the 150 kV GIS AD20 Circuit Breaker at PT. Krakatau Electric Power. Using research methods directly in the field with interviews and analysis. The results of this study are in the form of an understanding of CB operating systems that can be turned on both locally and via remote control and also the results of routine CB maintenance as an indication of the appropriateness of the equipment for operation so that from the associated analysis can be known the strengths and weaknesses of the device, especially the circuit breaker type GIS.

Fault diagnosis for circuit-breakers using adaptive chirp mode decomposition and attractor’s morphological characteristics

In order to minimize operation and maintenance costs and enhance the reliability of circuit-breaker (CB), faults should be detected simply and diagnosed effectively. To enable this, monitoring or diagnostic-test techniques should provide critical information of the CB and make the decision-making process simple. In recent years, vibration-based analysis has gained attention for the said purpose. However, the diagnostic performance is limited by the highly time-varying and non-stationary vibration signals. Hence, within this paper a new diagnostic framework is proposed for CB fault diagnosis. The recently proposed adaptive chirp mode decomposition (ACMD) is introduced for extracting the fast fluctuating instantaneous frequency in the CB’s vibration signal. A high-resolution adaptive time-frequency spectrum which can clearly represent the time-frequency (TF) characteristics of the vibration signal is obtained by combining the wavelet transform and ACMD. The component with the most significant TF fluctuation is reconstructed into phase space to study the dynamical characteristics of CB. Based on the reconstructed phase space, a new set of dynamical features, namely RST (i.e., ratio of major to minor axis, shape complexity and trajectory compactness), is proposed for achieving a stable and accurate diagnosis of CB faults. The proposed diagnostic framework is evaluated on two experimental scenarios with different types of CB. The reasonable diagnostic performances confirm the ability of the proposed technique in diagnosing CB faults.

Development of Fast Acting Electronic Circuit Breaker

The rapid increase in population has more demand and consumption of electrical energy in the market, use of equipments such as electrical and electronic components are also costlier. In order to protect the system from overload, or short circuit here is one possibility, which is by fast acting electronic circuit breaker. A circuit breaker is an automatically operating switch designed to shut down the power supply when it is overloaded. The tripping depends on the current passing through the CT’s which is connected in series with load. The project is designed to develop the power supply which shuts down when it is overloaded by using a fast acting electronic circuit breaker. The concept of developing a electronic circuit breaker came into focus realizing that the conventional circuit breakers such as MCB’s and fuse take longer time to trip. Therefore for sensitive loads it is very important to activate the tripping mechanism within short period of time. We know that the Modern technologies are paramount to provide operational reliability and financial profitability, so it is very important to develop an electronic circuit breaker by using a micro controller arduino. Here an electronic circuit breaker is designed using arduino in which program is dumped and a particular is set so that the system can shut down when it is overloaded. Here the voltage is sensed and rectified to DC and then it is compared with a preset voltage by a level comparator to generate an output that drives a relay to trip the load. The relay is preferred in place of semiconductors because such solid state switches would invariably fail in case of accidental short circuits. This project is designed to overcome the drawback of thermal type of circuit breaker like MCB based on a thermal bimetal lever trip mechanism which is very slow. This project is based on the current sensing across a series element typically a CT (Current Transformer). The current sensed which is compared against the preset value proportional to the voltage by comparator which is inbuilt in arduino to generate an output that drives a relay to trip the load very fast.