Investigation of DC Vacuum Arc Interruption Ability with Combined Axial and Radial Magnetic Field

Abstract

DC Vacuum Circuit Breakers based arc control has been a major topic in the last few decades. Understanding vacuum arc (VA) gives the ability to improve vacuum circuit breakers capacity. In this paper, the interaction of a DC vacuum arc with a combined Axial-Radial magnetic field was investigated. The proposed system contains an external coil to produce axial magnetic field (AMF) across the vacuum chamber. The vacuum interrupter (VI) contacts were assumed to be untreated radial magnetic field (RMF) contacts. For this purpose, Finite Element Method (FEM) based Multiphysics simulation of the immerging magnetic field influence on the VA is presented. The simulation shown the ability of the presented system to deflect high DC vacuum arc, also reveals that the vacuum arc interruption capability increases with the rise of the axial component of the magnetic field. Simulation results shown that this method can be applied to improve the interruption capability of the VI.