When the circuit breaker is switched on and off, the phenomenon of arc ablation will occur. Under the action of the electric arc, the surface of the contact is constantly damaged, resulting in deformation and material evaporation. With the increase in the electric arc temperature, the material loss on the contact surface of the circuit breaker increases. In this paper, according to the three major factors affecting the electrical life of the circuit breaker arc extinguishing chamber—the state of the arc contact, the nozzle, and the SF6 gas—the corresponding test detection methods and evaluation methods are proposed. With the continuous accumulation of the breaking current, the effective contact displacement between the arc contacts decreases and the average contact resistance increases. The effective contact displacement decreases exponentially with the increase in the cumulative breaking energy. The content of CF4 can be used not only to characterize the discharge ablation on the surface of the nozzle insulating material but also to characterize the discharge decomposition degree of SF6 in the system by adding carbonaceous compounds. Through the experiment, it is suggested that CF4 should reach 600 µl/l as the threshold for judging whether the arc extinguishing chamber needs maintenance. This method can be extended to the working condition evaluation of the arc extinguishing chamber of other types of the SF6 circuit breaker.

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) inspection has become one of the main means of daily operation and maintenance of overhead transmission lines. Since the key components of the UAV inspection system are composed of electronic components, it relies on data communication to realize data link transmission. In the actual operation process, the complex electromagnetic field environment has an obvious impact on its control and communication performance, especially when inspecting near the DC line. In this paper, combined with the research on the safety assurance technology of UAV inspection operations, the electromagnetic field simulation model of the UAV inspection operation on DC transmission lines is established. The electromagnetic field distribution around the wire is analyzed when the UAV is at different inspection distances, and the influence range and degree of the DC electromagnetic field on UAV inspection system are obtained. A true test platform for the inspection safety distance of the ±500 kV line UAV inspection was built, and the inspection safety distance test and research of the small rotary-wing UAV with a typical size, structure, and material was carried out. Through the test, when the current of the transmission line is 3 kA, the minimum safety distance of the UAV inspection operation of the ±500 kV DC transmission line straight tower is 3 m, and the distance is corrected in combination with the current. The research results of this paper can provide technical support for the inspection operation of small multi-rotor UAVs on ±500 kV transmission lines.

The power penetration line of high-speed railway adopts all-cable lines, and its failure will seriously affect the safety and reliability of railway transportation. The accurate location of the fault will greatly reduce the range of finding the cable fault point and the workload of cable fault repair, shorten the maintenance time, and improve the reliability of high-speed railway power supply. This paper introduces the current situation of power line fault location, analyzes various traveling wave location principles and the traveling wave transmission and attenuation characteristics of all-cable penetration lines, and analyzes the adaptability of the traditional traveling wave location technology in all-cable penetration line fault location. It is proposed that the distributed traveling wave location method can greatly reduce the transmission distance of fault traveling waves and can effectively reduce the influence of attenuation and distortion in the traveling wave transmission process. For different types of fault traveling waves, different fault transition resistances, and different positions of fault points, the method can achieve the accurate location. The practical application case shows that the technology has high location accuracy and meets the requirements of a precise location.

Under the action of 30 mA leakage current, in order to study the influence of atmospheric corrosion behavior on metal materials of transmission lines, this article analyzes the corrosion weightlessness of metal materials under different SO2 concentrations and leakage current conditions by placing metal materials in three corrosive environments. When the content of SO2 is relatively small, the leakage current has little effect on the corrosion weightlessness of the sample. However, when the content of SO2 is relatively large, the leakage current accelerates the corrosion of metal materials, and the surface of the sample will have more γ-FeOOH metastable crystalline phase. When the corrosion products accumulate to a certain extent, some of the corroded samples γ-FeOOH become relatively stable α-FeOOH and Fe3O4, the corrosion products will reduce the occurrence of corrosion phenomena, and on the contrary, the corrosion resistance of the sample will be improved.