The behavior of high current arcs in vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) is interesting for research and industrial development purpose which lead to further products. To improve the interruption capability of VCB, two approaches to control the arc have been proven successful. Applying transversal magnetic fields (TMF) on the arc is use for industrial VCB in medium voltage ranges. For greater gap distances the behavior of the arc is less thoroughly investigated. <br /> In this paper, the appearance of metal vapor arcs drawn by common TMF contacts in a vacuum-test-interrupter is investigated. An adapted drive mechanism enables to interrupt a fixed current with varying gaps from 5 to 25 mm and a constant opening time. Breaking operations with a 50 Hz current are observed with a high speed camera. With increasing gap distance a changed arc appearance can be observed. The goals of this work are to be understood as a feasibility study for optical evaluation methods for vacuum arcs under TMF.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.